Here to share my vast experience with HH

0707129r

Well-known member
I'm here to share my experiences with the debilitating condition hyperhidrosis. I've had severe palmar/ plantar HH since birth and it has had a devastating impact on my life, my relationships with others and perception of myself.
Anyway, enough moaning, heres the treatments I've tried;
topicals - driclor, antihydral, klima,
iontophoresis
glycopyrollate
propranolol
vesicare
detrunorm
green essence powder
piracteam
phenibut
noopept

Out of these, glycopyrollate (avert, robinul etc) is clearly the most effective method to combat HH. Having started taking it about 2 years ago (from pharmacy.ca), it instantly was successful and gave me 95% upwards dryness. I found it difficult to manage eating as you have to have a completely empty stomach and I found you could not eat until the effects had started. This took around 4 hours and lasted around 12 hours afterwards. The side effects were manageable but unpleasant; very dry mouth, urinary retention, blurred vision, headaches. I found a way to ensure 100% effectiveness, with onset of glyco after around 10 minutes, however I will not discuss this method here. Anyway, this drug was unsustainable as it meant a constant dry mouth that meant it was difficult to swallow, and made any potential amorous interaction difficult, if not impossible. Conclusion: A good place to start treatment, and ideal for high pressure interviews, but not sustainable long term.

The only topical I found useful was antihydral (methenamin) as used by rock climbers. I used this on my hands every night for 4 days, and afterwards had 90% plus dryness for several weeks. However this product caused extreme scaling, yellow decayed skin and calluses , to the point where I don't think I could break the skin even with a knife. It took 4 weeks, tons of moisturizer, exfoliation etc to get my skin back to normal. Conclusion: certainly works but tears up your skin like nobody's business.

Iontophoresis can work, but it is highly unpredictable, time consuming and painful. I started this around 2008, and had initial success. I found using bottled water with a high bicarbonate content (Badoit) to be best. Using a relatively painful current level (switching polarities after 15 minutes) for around 10 days gave 80% plus dryness for several days. However I found the maintenance sessions seemed to cause horrendous sweating again for a day afterwards before dryness again. It was unpredictable and sole destroying in that you could be dry one day, then soaking the next. You could not rely on dryness for special occasions etc. Conclusion: can work, but until we know definitively how it works, cannot be relied upon and horribly time consuming.

I've started experimenting with nootropic supplements recently and found phenibut to be successful in reducing anxiety, and also anxiety related sweating. I've posted about i before, and its early doors but encouraging.

This post is very long, but I felt it owed it to the community to share my experience as I've been a long time lurker and I understand the frustration with this terrible affliction. Please feel free to ask me any questions, I can almost guarantee I know more about this than your dermatologist.
 

ImNotMyIllness

Well-known member
For me, the only thing that worked was Botox. However, that is painful (which I can deal with) and very expensive, which lead me to quit.

I have Plantar HH. Good leather shoes and cotton socks (I would like to try wool) ensure no foot odor.
 

hyp-hi

Well-known member
Hey 0707129r, I'm glad you decided to register and share your wisdom on the subject. You obviously have a lot of experience with the different treatments. Right now I am just doing ionto, but you are right, it is time consuming and unpredictable.
 

CharlesN

Well-known member
I am new to ionto. Been only a month and a bit. When does this unpredictability kick in? Is it something where the treatments start to lose their effectiveness over time? Because I'm really sad to hear that. Super happy with the results to date. I'm doing ionto with glyco in the water (0.05 solution).

Thanks,
 

Sprawling

Well-known member
Lot's of theory's as to why ionto can stop working. Lots of info in the back posts. I've been doing ionto since 2005. I've had it work well for years, then not work. There are so many factors that are literally unknown. Lot's of guess work.
 

0707129r

Well-known member
As nobody knows why ionto works, there is no way currently to optimize treatments and it's largely guesswork. I have a theory that varying the water used (mineral content etc) accounts for the majority of unpredictability. I always found a reoccurence of sweating the day after every maintenance treatment and this is largely unavoidable. As I say, badoit water with high bicarbonate content is the best as proven by a french study. This also means the water used is constant. They best way to do ionto is a Day 1, day 2, day 4, day 7, day 10, day 15 and day 22.

Using ionto with glyco works in a different way, and is really just a way to deliver the drug to the hands. Its just a more targeted way of ingesting glyco. You will find the results are more reliable than just with water, although you may have to put up with very dry mouth for several days (and possibly headaches) after the treatment, particularly if you're doing hands and feet.
 

Sprawling

Well-known member
All this has been discussed numerous times.
Water quality can play a role for some people, body chemistry in another, altitude, other medications, fibromyalgia... and more. Glyco in the water does not work for everyone.

Yup, nobody really knows why ionto works, just like it's not known how certain medications (non HH) work.

Ionto can work wonderfully for years, then suddenly stop. Then a year later it may work again. I've experienced all scenario's using ionto.
 

0707129r

Well-known member
As I said above, iontophoresis is too unpredictable to be used as the only treatment against HH. I in fact found it worked against other treatments I was using such as oral glyco. I decided that after spending hours of my time, for something that might or might not work, I would be better exploring other options. A recent study found topical methenamin to be more effective that ionto.
 

CharlesN

Well-known member
Great, thanks to you both. I've never had the dry mouth impact - or maybe I did and didn't notice it.

Shows there is still so much to learn about something that obviously impacts a great number of people in a pretty big way.
 

SweatParty

Well-known member
As I said above, iontophoresis is too unpredictable to be used as the only treatment against HH. I in fact found it worked against other treatments I was using such as oral glyco. I decided that after spending hours of my time, for something that might or might not work, I would be better exploring other options. A recent study found topical methenamin to be more effective that ionto.

Where can you get this topical methenamin?

I tried Drysol on my hands a long time ago with no success at all. I also tried Odaban, but it made them worse. That was surprising, because Odaban works incredibly well for my underarms, and I would recommend that everyone with undearm sweating try it out.
 

0707129r

Well-known member
Where can you get this topical methenamin?

I tried Drysol on my hands a long time ago with no success at all. I also tried Odaban, but it made them worse. That was surprising, because Odaban works incredibly well for my underarms, and I would recommend that everyone with undearm sweating try it out.

Its called antihydral or dehydral, depending on where you live. Is marketed as a rock climbing cream, can be purchased from ebay. It no doubt works, however I found it too hardcore for my skin.
 

sportsfan8

Well-known member
I have the exact same problems with glyco, extreme dry mouth and eyes to the point where I can't wear contacts without great discomfort. I take 2mg of avert and might try to go down to 1.5 to see if the side effects lessen, but I've noticed it can take a good 5-6 hours for it to kick in as it is, so I'm worried about losing effectiveness.

Though expensive, I am most likely going to be looking into botox.
 

SweatParty

Well-known member
Its called antihydral or dehydral, depending on where you live. Is marketed as a rock climbing cream, can be purchased from ebay. It no doubt works, however I found it too hardcore for my skin.

OK thanks!

I might have to try that stuff out especially once summer comes. Glyco does not work as well or as consistently in the summer for me (and probably many people).
 

wannabedry

Well-known member
any advice to someone who has debilitating compensatory sweat from mt ETS 11 years ago?? i can soak my shirt and shorts within an hour in hot humid weather! i tried drysol only a few times but stopped due to the irritation. avert only worked for me for a couple hours or so at a time and then would just cause the sweat to come back even worse than normal after the avert wore off. i live in florida now and im afraid to even leave the house because summers here. I must figure something out soon!! HELP!!!
 

0707129r

Well-known member
any advice to someone who has debilitating compensatory sweat from mt ETS 11 years ago?? i can soak my shirt and shorts within an hour in hot humid weather! i tried drysol only a few times but stopped due to the irritation. avert only worked for me for a couple hours or so at a time and then would just cause the sweat to come back even worse than normal after the avert wore off. i live in florida now and im afraid to even leave the house because summers here. I must figure something out soon!! HELP!!!

If you've still got access to avert I'd try taking 2mg late at night, on an empty stomach before you go to bed. Do this every night and allow the drug in build up in your system, you should see more consistent results than just prn. I've been trying another drug benztropine recently and it seems to work better for body HH, whereas avert is better for hands/feet. Worth considering if the avert thing doesn't work. Taking it with bioperine (black pepper extract found in any health food store) increases bioavailability and it will be more effective.
 
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