Breaking point

[DaaaBulls]

Has anyone else reached their breaking point with this condition?

I am 25 years old and have zero friends. I have never been able to have a girl friend. I cannot focus on my career. School was a living hell. Every single social interaction is a living hell. The past 10 years of my life have been this way.

At what point do I call it quits? I cannot do this anymore. I have tried many different anti-perspirants, Iontophorisis, Botox etc etc. The whole point to life is to enjoy every single day. To make friends and form relationships. This damn condition has ruined my life.

I have been locked in my room the past week trying to do Iontophorisis sessions. I have had basically zero social interaction. I am bound to run out of money because I haven't worked in 3 weeks.

I don't know what to do anymore. I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. This is not how a life was suppose to be lived.

This condition has absolutely ruined every aspect of my life.

 

[WantToQuit]

*sigh* Yes, I broke too.. I honestly feel like I really want to kill myself because this isn't how life is suppose to be lived, so why live life suffering. I hate hearing quotes like "life is 90% pain & 10% happiness", I mean if that quote is meant for regular people, does that mean that life for people with hyperhidrosis 99.9% pain & .1% happiness for us? It's so frustrating, since I never had a relationship before too, I have career dreams that I can't pursue, I'm losing all my friends since my condition is only getting worse, I managed to cope with it being in my hands, then it spread to feet, then to my armpits and now it's starting to go on my face. Nobody understands. I'm in debt now and can't figure out how to find which job will hire me with out looking at me like I'm a freak. With all these factors, I mean is there a point in living anymore? I've tried topical, robinul, botox.

I feel like doctors don't give two sh*ts since, there's no research done on it but to make money from ETS. Even the damn auto-correct on the dictionary doesn't know what hyperhidrosis means sometimes.
MiraDry seemed promising, I hope they do more research.

You sound like me... except that you sound better off the me, at least you have Iontophorisis machines. I can't even afford that & I have no family members who's willing to give me money for that.

 

[Sprawling]

Sorry for how you are feeling. Those of us with HH understand how you feel. Get out into the world and live the best you can. It's possible to get a girlfriend, make friends etc. If you need to explain your condition to others, do so. It took me a long time to reveal my dripping hand problem to my friends and family. I received only positive support. Hopefully the ionto will work and that surely will take a load of thought off you.

 

[MarionBerry]

If it makes you feel any better, I had a professor who would sweat through his shirts in 10 minutes but I don't think anyone ever cared. And he was married and had some kids. So. Try not to be too hard on yourself. You deserve good stuff in life.

 

[dragonoth]

Even though life may suck now doesn't mean it will always be this way. There's no rush to getting yourself out of your room and building social contacts. You should take it step by step and not just look at the whole journey from a bird's eye view and think you'll never make it because it's too far. Even if you don't feel like doing something, yet you have to do it or you kind of want to do it, just do it anyway. Taking action will help you get things done. You'll even feel better that you managed to do those things instead of lying in bed doing nothing.

 

[Blandy]

You cant just jump from having socialphobia to having a normal social life, u need to take little steps and be brave, it has to come from you. It will be scary at first but u will get used to it, Im 19 and a year ago i was in a similar state to you, but i decided enough was enough and stopped feeling sorry for myself, i still struggle with things but im getting better.

Dont worry honestly, this is just a stage in your life that u will get over, but u need to help yourself and push urself to do things that u know-in the long term will help.

 

[hyp-hi]

I'm sorry to hear that. I know how frustrating it can be. Just remember there are lots of us dealing with the same condition and lots of other people out there in the world with even worse conditions. Yes it makes life difficult, but you just have to adapt to it and make the best of it. Do you have any family that can help you out? See about earning money from home so you don't have to go out to work. Things have a way of turning around when you least expect it.

 

[dyingtolive]

i am sorry.. though i dont have HH i have other conditions that make me feel the same way

 

[Soy Sauce]

My heart goes out to you and to all of those who have not found a way to control your HH. I guess I am lucky in that I only have palmar/plantar HH and iontophoresis has worked for me. I do know the feelings that you are going through though, as I did not discover iontophoresis till 2008 and glycopyrrolate until 2005. My highschool years (I'm 30 now) were very tough as I had not even had my condition diagnosed at that point. I had to wrap a cloth around my hand when writing and back then, my sweat had bad B.O.. I even resorted to wearing my football gloves during school like it was some sort of fashionable thing. Girlfriend? Forget about it. I couldn't even shake hands with people. I would actually refuse to shake hands with people and only give fist bumps, like shaking hands wasn't cool or something. Because I hadn't had my condition diagnosed at that point, I didn't know what the hell was wrong with me.

Have you tried glycopyrrolate (Avert) yet? It has very annoying side effects but compared to dealing with full blown HH, it provided great relief.

Also, I don't know what type of HH you have but maybe give iontophoresis another try. A lot of people give up before they've really given it a chance. It took me longer than the recommended/anticipated sessions before I started seeing results initially. It can be annoying and time consuming, but the rewards far outweigh the inconvenience. Try not to get discouraged too quickly if the results don't come as soon as you'd hoped.

I know it's hard, but don't give up and do whatever you have to do to feel more comfortable with your condition, even if others might look at you oddly for wearing double shirts or carrying a towel with you or whatever. **** em. It's normal to let what other people think of you, matter, but don't let it rule your life. If you stop caring as much, you might find that it weakens that vicious cycle of sweating for no reason then sweating because you get nervous about being around people, which triggers the sweating and so on, and so forth.

Wish they would find a cure for this condition. If I won the lottery, I'd fund research to find a cure.

 

[mikebird]

I am exactly the same.

You've put this very well.

I can't say much more, but

things are gradually getting a lot worse for me.
I think some of us should get together somehow. The most local, the more, the better. Just talk. I'm listening

We can gain something. Every day is different for me. Nice things do happen.

 

[MrSunday]

Has anyone else reached their breaking point with this condition?

I am 25 years old and have zero friends. I have never been able to have a girl friend. I cannot focus on my career. School was a living hell. Every single social interaction is a living hell. The past 10 years of my life have been this way.

At what point do I call it quits? I cannot do this anymore. I have tried many different anti-perspirants, Iontophorisis, Botox etc etc. The whole point to life is to enjoy every single day. To make friends and form relationships. This damn condition has ruined my life.

I have been locked in my room the past week trying to do Iontophorisis sessions. I have had basically zero social interaction. I am bound to run out of money because I haven't worked in 3 weeks.

I don't know what to do anymore. I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. This is not how a life was suppose to be lived.

This condition has absolutely ruined every aspect of my life.

I'll be your friend. Seriously I don't have any friends. I know some people, but they are not really my friends, just acquaintances.

 

[Jezza]

Has anyone else reached their breaking point with this condition?

I am 25 years old and have zero friends. I have never been able to have a girl friend. I cannot focus on my career. School was a living hell. Every single social interaction is a living hell. The past 10 years of my life have been this way.

At what point do I call it quits? I cannot do this anymore. I have tried many different anti-perspirants, Iontophorisis, Botox etc etc. The whole point to life is to enjoy every single day. To make friends and form relationships. This damn condition has ruined my life.

I have been locked in my room the past week trying to do Iontophorisis sessions. I have had basically zero social interaction. I am bound to run out of money because I haven't worked in 3 weeks.

I don't know what to do anymore. I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. This is not how a life was suppose to be lived.

This condition has absolutely ruined every aspect of my life.

Yes absolutely. Eventhough I do have some good friends and force myself to go out and try and have fun regardless of the dreaded sweating, I've often thought what's the point, is it getting better someday (before I'm old and grey). Some years ago after studying abroad for some time (something I was set on doing regardless of the sweating), eventhough I still had some very good times during that period, I still reached a point where I realised something had to give for me to have a really fulfilling life (and yes, mainly that entails a serious realtionship with a sweet lady and me not sweating like hell all the time) and at the same time I couldn't see that happen in the near future.

I pretty much did the same thing you did...felt like I exhausted all other options and frantically started an ionto regime eventhough I had written ionto off after a previous try. Finally after some 20 days it worked for my hands at least, and improved my feet vastly. It was December so finally that year I could at least give my family and friends a decent handshake without embarassement.

That was really important to me, but still, as I've got pretty generalised HH everyday I'm having serious problems with HH and by far the most important one is obviously contact. I can deal with looking like a nervous wreck while I'm not if people want to think that, but not really being able to have carefree physical realtions is killing me, and also professionally it doesn't help at all (but that too is just not as important as the former).

I'm now at this moment contemplating glyco again. It's not easy to obtain here but I think i just kinda have to have another break like the ionto was to move forward in life again, which is absolutely necessary for me at this point.

I can hang with friends and still have a good time now and then, but if I think about all the good things I missed, the carreer oppertunities I would have otherwise had or even how the good times could have been that much better...I guess you really have to not rue what could have been but it's inescapable sometimes. I've been in (admittedly few but still) situations where cute chicas basically let me know I only needed to say the word and it's so painful to have to decline. Once I fully explained about the HH etc...AARGH.

Well yeah...you know how it is I guess...It's too damn difficult sometimes but then there is no real alternative so I'll just keep living till there's finally a better way to deal with this freaking affliction, it's the only thing we can really do at the end of the day.

 

[the_caretaker]

I think what might be your problem is that maybe you say you want friends and a g.f. but deep down you really don't and your just forcing yourself to be someonr your not with these treatments. you need to not force yourself to have fun, it just comes naturally. And you should never, evr force yourself into a friendship or relationship.

 

[Sprawling]

Sometimes we need a little pushing. Sometimes we really don't know what our true nature is. Most times we have multiple true natures.

 

[Jezza]

I think what might be your problem is that maybe you say you want friends and a g.f. but deep down you really don't and your just forcing yourself to be someonr your not with these treatments. you need to not force yourself to have fun, it just comes naturally. And you should never, evr force yourself into a friendship or relationship.

The first sentence is ludicrous, you can never ever make that statement based on a post on a forum. If you think you can you should go to a different forum for people with a god complex, and/or try telling it to the face of somebody you actually know who has a disease or handicap...see how they react. All these people claiming you should embrace a handicap like this or claim to have embraced it are just deluding themselves, telling themselvex it's a part of who you are blah blah blah, but what is the first thing they do when there's an option to cure it? Exactly...

The 2nd part is good advice but also pretty obvious. For me personally anyway, the whole reason not to want to sweat is to be able to be happy in a relationship and not to settle down for whoever is 'available' and wants to accept my HH cause I know it wouldn't end up great for me or her that way.

The goal is not to have a relationship at any cost, the goal is to stop Ssweating and finally feel healthy. Subsequently as a result of that it is likely that many important aspects of life get better, but it would still only be a result of the real primary goal. It's that whole Maslow's pyramid of human needs thing, for people with HH (or any other handicap) the lowest layer isn't fulfilled so that's almost the singular target before anything else can really get awesome.

 

[the_caretaker]

I've had skin cancer on my arm, Jezza and I had to spend a lot of time in therapy to get my arm back. Don't tell me how to live with a diease.

 

[Jezza]

I've had skin cancer on my arm, Jezza and I had to spend a lot of time in therapy to get my arm back. Don't tell me how to live with a diease.

I just hope you understand the irony of that statement.

 

[Sprawling]

I agree with Jezza.

the_caretaker: There are no blanket statements on how we deal with different afflictions or why we get them. Sorry you had to endure Cancer on your arm and I'm happy for you that you found a way to cope. I think we can be anything we might want to be... unless we can't.

 

[Feathers]

Well, I met someone who was happily married and had work etc, seemed like a regular guy - went to a quiz and he sweated BIG TIME! his hands mostly... he needed a small towel.. (They weren't even shown on TV!) WON THE QUIZ!!

So, unless you plan to be some sort of BIG MOVIE STAR where all your body would need to be shown in non-sweaty scenes too, well, most people don't even notice these things, or may see it as 'normal' that some people sweat? (I thought it was kinda 'normal', and didn't know HH is considered such a 'problem' till I saw it on this forum and on TV in a series?)

True friends care about people being loyal, good listeners etc. Not just about looks and such!!
(Some even prefer not-so-perfect friends so that *they* don't need to feel inferior!!)

C, sorry to hear about the skin cancer, a friend's mum had it too..
People can be different.. I can relate to your post a bit, some others may not..

Hope things get better for you guys...

 

[Foxface]

I've been close to my breaking point a few times. I have no problem getting up out of bed or leaving the house. I am strong like that and I force myself everyday to move forward. Staying in the house too long makes me depressed. I go exploring, finding nw roads and adventures and such.

I don't want my mind to snap, I am scared as to what will happen. Either I will just blank out from the world or go crazy and be someone like the guy who shot those people in Colorado.

I hold myself together to keep from loosing my mind. Having a car really helps.