After so many years tried Ionto - it works!

[Nudos]

Hi,

After reading this forum for a year in silence and trying to decide whether to go back to trying yet another treatment, I took the plunge and tried iontophoresis.

My story: I have had severe HH on my hands, feet and armpits since I was born. I went through childhood, puberty, etc, hiding my condition and feeling ashamed and embarrased by it. I can recall every person I've encountered in my life that has ever made me feel worse about this and although I don't harbour any bad feelings, I could never forget the feeling of being looked at with disgust. In hindsight I think that only made me stronger. I'm a confident, positive person but I know having suffered with HH has shaped certain aspects of my character. Funnily enough, for the better. I always felt more understanding for those people with disabilities, in a minority etc. but really for people in general.

Last summer was a particularly bad one for me. The heat, the humidity - you know what I'm talking about.

I tried many treatments in the past. Creams, acupuncture, Beta blockers, etc. One day I realized I was always going to suffer from HH and tried to move on and learn how to cope and live with it. I never thought I would want to try another treatment again until last year.

It's taken me a year to prepare myself for a failing treatment.

Two weeks ago I started my treatment on the NHS (British Health System). And so far it has worked!

I could not and still can't believe it. After the first session I sweated more than ever and thought, ok, this is not going well. But after the second time my sweat stopped, on hands I would say in a 85 percent, on feet 80%. After the third session the sweat in my hands completely stopped. My feet stopped sweating too but only in those areas covered by water. In the other areas (sides of feet namely) I'm sweating so little I can barely see it. It's only slightly moist.

I'm coming to the end of the treatment and I still can't believe it. I keep on looking at my hands trying to make them seat by looking at them but nothing. I feel a light tingling but no sweat.

I'm thiking about buying the machine and I'm curious as to when the sweat will return. If anyone there with the experience, please could you let me know how long it takes for you between treatments?

Although I've always kept away from forums I really wanted to write this in case it helps someone.

Any questions - just ask please!

Good luck!

 

[aero]

Thats good to hear, hopefully I can achieve dryness soon too with my machine (just started). May I ask you some details about your treatment? (how frequent, how long, what mA?)

 

[KngofMn]

Hey aero,
I also use the Fischer model and get mixed results. Right now when I am in low stress situations my hands will be extremely dry but its when I get into situations where I am either around lots of other people or am doing something that makes me nervous then they still sweat a little. The thing that makes it bad is that when they do sweat now they probably sweat 50-60% less but the sweat that is there gets cold from the air conditioning or whatever and they still feel cold and clammy but better then before. I have started to use Dehyrdal lotion at night before I go to bed so I figure that that will help to reduce the sweating even more. I am also going to start dissolving acouple of my Robinul tablets in the water before I do each treatment.

My treatments started out a few weeks ago by doing it every other day or so on 14-18 MA for 10 min on each polarity. I wasn't seeing enough results so I started to do treatments everyday 20 min on each polarity so 40 min all together on around 15-20 MA, whatever current I could take. But my hands would get a ton of blisters and sores and it made it almost impossible for me to do it everyday so the last week I have been doing 1 hand and 1 foot one day and the other limbs the next day. It seems like it is actually working better since I have been giving my hand a day off. I do long treatments though, I will do 30 minutes on positive polarity for my hand and then 15-20 min on the reverse polarity so aroun 45-50 min treatments.

Regarding baking soda, it seemed to me that when I started using more baking soda the less effective it became. I was using 1 tsp and now just use around 1/4 of a tsp and it seems to work a lot better even though you have o crank it up all the way to get to 20-25 MA which is the current I now use.

Something weird I notice is that the tray with the black electrode seems to put out more current because I notice a lot more bubbles around the balck electrode than the red electrode. That may sound kind of dumb but oh well. Sometimes my machine also doesn't turn on right away and takes a few tries which is strange, I wonder if anyone else has this problem.

 

[Nudos]

Thats good to hear, hopefully I can achieve dryness soon too with my machine (just started). May I ask you some details about your treatment? (how frequent, how long, what mA?)

Hi Aero!

I'm doing what I think it's the 'standard' treatment.

Week 1: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
Week 2: Monday, Thursday
Week 3:Wednesday
Week 4: Tuesday

I have my hands and feet on the trays for 10 minutes at 15mA.

Then I rest for about a minute, shaking my hands etc. and do
another 10 minutes at about 12mA.

The nurse told me to stop her at the maximun mA's I could stand. I initially stopped her at 15 but I've realized that as the treatment goes on my hands are becoming increasingly sensitive and I can only achieve

12mA on the first 10 mins and 10mA on teh second 10 mins.

The treatment started to work between the second and third session. On the fourth I started to have to put moisturizing cream on my hands (would you believe it!!!), as they felt and looked dry and tight. I got a blister on my hand, if that happens to you apply a bit of vaseline so as to cover that area.

Hope this helps, and I hope it works for you!

 

[aero]

KngofMn
Nice, I gave my hands a 2 day break from my last treatment. Tonight i think I'm going to try longer treatments, less baking soda and increase the intensity a little bit.

After my second and third treatments, I would put on Drysol before i go to bed. It may have worked as thats when i noticed less sweating BUT when i decided to skip the Drysol one night, my hands were back to normal the next day. Hopefully it wasn't because of the Drysol. Goodluck with your Dehydral cream, hopefully you wont get the same sort of results that I have had with my Drysol. After all, this all still seems to be like an experiment :roll:


Thanks Nudos,
Maybe if the above doesn't work I'll try a lower intensity. Less could be more

 

[Jezza]

I keep reading people use 20-25 mA and I can't see how you can take that. I use the Idromed 4 and in the manual it says not to exceed 15 mA for hands (in fact it advises to keep well under that).

When I use the machine I can start feeling the itch from 6-7 mA. Than I eventually do the treatment at 10. I used 12/13 three times in a row and I got tiny little blisters all over my hands, which than make it harder to do the treatment. So I went back to 10. Even at 10, when I pull out my hands there's a redness that I think is caused by very minor burns among the waterline and on my wrists. It usually goes away in a couple of hours.

Anyway, I'm thinking 1 mA is 1 mA, so A; What causes this difference and B; Is taking a higher current actually more effective?

But I guess we can only speculate, since I did find a paper on this subject but you have to pay 39 dollars to read it :evil:

 

[KngofMn]

Jezza,
Sorry to hear it hasn't been working for you yet. You say you have been doing it at 10MA, which for me I don't think would do anything expecially at 10 min for each polarity. The last 3-4 days my hands have been very dry and have sweat little to none when I am not in any stressful situations. This was good but I wanted to not sweat all the time. Anyways today my hands were dry to the point that they were cracking and it was pretty visible( not pretty looking). But when I went out all day my hands incredibly stayed dry, there was a little sweat on a region on the side of my hand and on my thumbs. But this area probably takes up about 20% of my hand so 80% was to the point of being "too" dry while the thse other parts were still sweating but even in those parts there was a reduction and I would say they were only sweating about 40% as much as they use to, just in those two regions. When I went out I was actually hoping for people to ask me to shake their hands which I obviously never ever do, infact I try and shy away from shaking others hands.

When you asked if more is better I would have to definately say YES. 10 MA might work for some people but others really need to push it and go up. It only makes sense that more is better, how could it possibly hurt? Except for the fact that it does hurt.

Here is what I am doing, it is a bit extreme but I want dry hands and will do anything to get them:
I do 1 hand and 1 foot one day at 23-25 MA for 30 minutes on the positive pole and then 20 minutes on the negative. I do my hands for the 30 minutes in positive and 20 in negative. so 50 minutes total. Then I do the other limbs the next day at the same amperage. I think that it is important to do a foot and hand instead of both hands at once because I have noticed that when I do both hands at the same time I can only go up to around 15-18 MA. But when I do one hand and one foot I can get it up to 25 MA easily. Yes it does hurt and yes I also get tons and tons of blisters. But if it works then I will do it. I would give it a shot to do it a lot longer and a lot higher.