Many people suffer from excessive sweating and it can be embarrassing to live with. Hyperhidrosis is considered to be abnormally excessive sweating that is not caused by exercise or excessive heat. Most people will sweat when they exert themselves or if it is very hot. Some people will even sweat if they are stressed or anxious, but people living with hyperhidrosis or diaphoresis have an overproduction of sweat that is not considered to be a normal amount.
If you suffer from hyperhidrosis, you may actually soak through your clothing and you may be literally dripping with sweat. Living with this condition can make it difficult to not only go through your daily activities, but it can cause you to feel social anxiety and embarrassment. There’s a treatment for hyperhidrosis which normally involves the use of prescription-strength antiperspirants. If this form of treatment proves to be ineffective, your doctor may prescribe alternative therapies or medications. In severe cases, it may be necessary to have your sweat glands removed or disconnected from the nerves that are the cause of the overproduction of sweat.
Sweating Too Much
Diaphoresis is different from hyperhidrosis and is a medical condition that is normally linked to medical emergency situations. It is often linked to circulatory shocks, and it includes all kinds of heavy perspiration. People normally have a body temperature of 98.6º Fahrenheit, and this body temperature is monitored by the hypothalamus. If this temperature rises to a very high number, it can actually threaten to affect the homeostasis negatively.
The body will sweat to cool the body down, but someone who has diaphoresis will have their sweat mechanism go off even if the body’s internal temperature is not triggering it to. Someone who suffers from this condition can have symptoms that are caused by psychological factors, such as a traumatic event that happened in the past. There can also be pathological factors, such as the use of certain drugs or narcotics. This condition can be brought on by the use of morphine, caffeine, and alcohol and from the excessive intake of mercury. Disorders, such as gout, automatic hyperreflexia, heart failure, lymphoma, obesity, malaria, and Parkinson’s disease can cause the development of this condition. Someone who has diaphoresis will suffer from excessive sweating or perspiration and will also have body odor as well as skin that is soft-looking, scaly or cracked.
In order to treat this condition, your doctor will need to look at all the signs and symptoms involved and will to consider many factors including environmental and pathological factors. It will be necessary to take a paper test, and in this exam, your doctor will use a strip of special paper that will be used to soak up the sweat from an affected area. The weight of the paper will be recorded and will tell your doctor how much sweat there is. In certain cases, it may be necessary to have an x-ray taken or a thyroid test in order to pinpoint any underlying medical condition.
The difference between the two conditions is that hyperhidrosis is basically a medical term for diaphoresis that will have no apparent cause. People who have this condition will perspire for no apparent reason and may have sweaty hands and underarms. Diaphoresis is a more severe form of perspiration and can arise all of a sudden or may be caused by elevated blood pressure or tachycardia.
If your doctor finds that you have hyperhidrosis, they will most likely perform a starch-iodine test for diagnosis. This will involve applying an iodine solution to the affected area. Once it dries, starch will be sprinkled over the entire area, and the combination of the two will show a dark-blue color which will indicate that there is indeed a case of excessive sweat.
Diaphoresis doesn’t have a treatment because it’s the result of a symptom of another condition. In order to “fix” the problem, your doctor will have to help you to take care of the symptom or symptom that is causing you to have diaphoresis. If you have this condition because of a pathological factor, you can be rid of this condition once you take care of the problem. If you have menopause, for example, you will need to deal with the symptoms of menopause to improve the side effects of diaphoresis.
Pinstripe Magazine Staff
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