Glyco switch to Oxybutynin

blueherron

Well-known member
Anyone have experience taking glyco then switching to oxybutynin or vice versa? Wondering if one is more effective than the other? My derm recently recommended I try Ditropan (Oxybutynin) instead of the Robinul (Glyco) I am on for my palmar/plantar to see if it would be more effective?

I take 1.5 mg of glyco in the AM, if I go much higher then I get the side effects pretty bad. It helps 100% for axillae, 60% for hands and 40% for feet.
 

ClammyBook

Member
I have never taken oxybutynin, and I am no doctor. However, I have been taking 4mg/day of glycopyrrolate for well over a decade and have researched the heck out of oral medications for HH sufferers. Like you, glyco helps a lot for my armpits, and a decent amount for my hands and feet, though it's by no means a complete cure. (I'm experimenting now with a Hidrex iontophoresis device to see how its results compare with what I'm able to achieve on glyco.)

Both glyco and oxybutynin belong to a class of drugs called anticholinergics, which are shown to decrease sweating as a side effect, generally, of other intentions; glyco is a peptic-ulcer med, oxy is a bladder incontinence drug. I can't speak to different levels of effectiveness--this is probably largely an individual matter--but I'd encourage you to do your research on both medications. Oxy is a far more powerful drug in that it has been demonstrated to cross the blood-brain barrier (glyco, generally, does not), which carries much higher cognitive risks, particularly in long-term use as with HH patients.

A few articles for your perusal:
ABC Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden Scale | Aging Brain Care
http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/533083

Hope that's helpful in considering your various options! Good luck.
 

blueherron

Well-known member
Hmmm, good info. Thanks. This is from that website you provided:

"While avoiding all anticholinergics is not always clinically possible, increasing awareness of the most problematic medications is.

Widely prescribed drugs with strong negative side effects for the aging brain include:

the over-the-counter antihistamine Benadryl
the antidepressant Paxil
the overactive bladder medication oxybutynin
the anti-schizophrenic clozapine"

Specifically mentions oxybutynin. Are you just now trying ionto for the first time? Are you using glyco with the ionto?

I started taking glyco 2.5 years ago and started doing ionto a few months after that when i realized it was not as effective for me as I would like. Ionto has definitely helped my hands but I am still working on feet. I gave ionto a couple of tries for my feet and things got worse to the point I had to stop.

What sort of results are you having with ionto? I would love to stop taking glyco but unsure of what the results would be of doing ionto only.
 

ClammyBook

Member
I tried the Drionic ionto device a long time ago, maybe 2002ish, and didn't have any success with it at all. I found it painful, time consuming, and no matter how much I stuck to the regimen, ineffective. That experience turned me off from iontophoresis for a long time, but I'm giving it another shot now based on some positive testimonials I've read more recently online for some of the newer devices.

What brand of iontophoresis device do you have? Are you able to control the voltage on it? I have the Hidrex PSP 1000, which allows a lot of customization. So far, I've been doing 15 minutes/day on my hands (90% pulsed current, 20 volts) and my feet (70% pulsed currents, 30 volts).

I have just been using it for five days, so definitely too early to tell. The first day, I took my glyco as usual, and was blown away by how extremely dry I felt all over--hands almost didn't sweat the whole day--so I stopped taking the glyco for the next two days. It was my first time not being on glyco for even a day in over a decade. I felt dry for one more day, then woke up sopping wet the next. I'm back to taking glyco as usual for a while longer. Eventually I do want to test whether I can achieve dryness without it at all (just with ionto), but for now, it still seems necessary.

It seems like a lot of people have success with ionto after 3-4 weeks. Some people experience a temporary increase in sweating first, which I seem to be having now. I will keep you posted on my continuing experiences.
 

blueherron

Well-known member
I currently use the Fischer MD-1A, it took me several weeks to see results, but thinking back I didn't have as much knowledge on it as I do now. I think if I would have done it every day 20 minutes per day I may have seen results sooner. I think that the glyco daily helps, and the ionto takes care of the rest. I didn't start seeing fairly good dryness on my hands until I did both. I haven't gone a day w/o glyco since I started taking it so not sure what would happen if I stopped. I would consider my sweating mild compared to others, but definitely bothersome.

I currently treat my hands every 2-3 days for 20 minutes at 10-12 amps, switching polarity half way through.
 
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Sprawling

Well-known member
I currently use the Fischer MD-1A, it took me several weeks to see results, but thinking back I didn't have as much knowledge on it as I do now. I think if I would have done it every day 20 minutes per day I may have seen results sooner. I think that the glyco daily helps, and the ionto takes care of the rest. I didn't start seeing fairly good dryness on my hands until I did both. I haven't gone a day w/o glyco since I started taking it so not sure what would happen if I stopped. I would consider my sweating mild compared to others, but definitely bothersome.

I currently treat my hands every 2-3 days for 20 minutes at 10-12 amps, switching polarity half way through.

One option is to use the Glyco in the ionto water or slowly taper the glyco over a period of a week or two to see if the ionto is working on its own.
 

blueherron

Well-known member
I just recently started adding 1mg to the positive tray and swapping trays mid treatment. I've only done this twice so far but it does seem to help maintain better dryness and I have already been able to lengthen treatment time. I am going to continue to do this and further space out treatments. I have read that adding the glyco helps achieve both of those things.
 

ClammyBook

Member
Shortly after that last post, I experienced something strange during my last ionto session with my hands. Midway through the treatment, my left palm suddenly started experiencing high levels of pain. I stupidly gutted it out until the end of the 15-minute window, only to discover that my palm had developed a spontaneous blood blister during the treatment. This turned into a small open wound, so I've had to lay off the ionto entirely on my palms until the skin heals, which it hasn't done yet completely. I'm a little befuddled by what happened and not sure if I should try to resume treatments, or if my machine is somehow defective that it would have caused my skin to blister. I had it set to 25 volts on 90% pulsed current when this happened. Disappointing, to say the least.

How is the ionto coming along? Seeing results?
 

blueherron

Well-known member
Wow, that doesn't sound good at all. Sorry to hear of it.

I have never had that experience. I have had some small blistering here and there If I have a cut on my hand from something else that area is very painful. I always cover blisters or scratches with petroleum jelly. I also read somewhere on this forum of someone using duct tape to cover scratches. I have never had to do that.

Maybe you are using your machine at too high a level. I use the MD-1a between 10-15 miliamps.
 

Jezza

Well-known member
Shortly after that last post, I experienced something strange during my last ionto session with my hands. Midway through the treatment, my left palm suddenly started experiencing high levels of pain. I stupidly gutted it out until the end of the 15-minute window, only to discover that my palm had developed a spontaneous blood blister during the treatment. This turned into a small open wound, so I've had to lay off the ionto entirely on my palms until the skin heals, which it hasn't done yet completely. I'm a little befuddled by what happened and not sure if I should try to resume treatments, or if my machine is somehow defective that it would have caused my skin to blister. I had it set to 25 volts on 90% pulsed current when this happened. Disappointing, to say the least.

With volts do you mean mA?

Anyway I've had the same experience with blistering and also skin pealing off in the beginning...Somehow now after years of ionto I don't have that anymore, the skin kinda gets used to it I guess. It was only the first few weeks. Like you I also first tried ionto, decided it didn't work for me after I did the treatments exactly like the instruction manual said and wasn't dry after that, only to start again pretty much out of desperation about a year later and just kept doing the treatments when finally, mercifully after 3 weeks of daily treatments my hands were dry. Man I really needed that back then, even if the other sweaty parts still give me an abundance of trouble it was at last something that improved some important aspects of the whole HH experience. I still believe ionto is the best solution for hands, I did other things like ointments and botox injections but it didn't work as well...the only (albeit quite big) downside is you have to take time to do the treatments (I usually watch some TV or a movie/series on my laptop while I do the treatments) and sometimes especially when you have a cut on your hands it's uncomfortable.

Still it's the only thing so far I'd really advise anyone with palmar HH (sadly I have more generalised HH as well) to do. Botox injections help a little too but for me I'd say not well enough and as for ointments and stuff...I'd say what's on the market now is a waste of money, some antiperspirants can help with axillary HH but other areas...meh, I've had no luck with it anyway.

I have a Idromed 4 GS btw. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but it's the one I bought back then and it works for me. Personally I'd go with a direct current machine, purely from personal experience since it has worked for me and I've read some reports of AC not working as well. Maybe it does work and the cases where it didn't are from people who got discouraged and gave up too soon but I don't know. FWIW I bought the machine in '07. Still use it today, although I've had to replace the plates at least once that I can remember (might have been twice) and I've replaced the adapter which was 170 euros...so pretty steep considering the whole thing was something like 500. The display on the machine flickers as well. But it's still in operation so I guess that's something.
 
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