As a palmar hyperhidrosis sufferer I've been looking into different cures for this condition for a reasonable amount of time now, even though I'm only 20 years of age and my sweating is relatively moderate (my hands never get to that dripping stage). Nonetheless, I've already visited two different thoracic surgeons in my area due to the fact that my mom kept insisting that I got the ETS (or VATS) surgery while I was a teenager. Instead of doing that though I preferred to steer away from the surgery for the time being and read everything that's on the web about it and its permanent side effects, and therefore to this day I'm very much skeptic and a bit scared to get it done on me.
Thing is, something popped up in my recent reads about ETS that caught my attention quite a bit - a few studies claim that if the surgery is done by cutting only the T4 level of the sympathetic trunk, while avoiding damage to the other nerves that lie above it (which are so frequently cut as well), the compensatory sweating side effects that arise post-op are minimized so significantly that in some of these studies virtually not a single patient said they were dissatisfied with the surgery at 6-month and one year follow-ups. And there's no apparent explanation as to why surgeons never thought they could solve the palmar/axillary problem by simply targeting this single nerve with minimized side-effects before (to this date some surgeons still cut T2 among other nerves causing the most severe forms CH).
What really surprises me here is that, if the results of those findings are really true and accurate, how can it be that this hasn't been regarded as a breakthrough in sympathetic surgery for palmar/axillary sweating? Why would so many doctors all over the world insist in perfoming the surgery the old-fashioned way, causing so much suffering in people who did not have to experience all the side effects?
ps. Sorry for my non-perfect English, it's my second language.
The links for the studies I've read are below:
Is sympathectomy at T4 level better than at T3 level for treating palmar hyperhidrosis? - PubMed - NCBI
T4 sympathectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis: looking for the right operation. - PubMed - NCBI
http://osp.mans.edu.eg/tmahdy/papers_of_month/0904_T4 sympathectomy for palmar.pdf
(I think I've looked at more of these sites but can't get hold of all of them).
I would love if somebody here could enlighten me on this matter... Cheers to everyone on here
Thing is, something popped up in my recent reads about ETS that caught my attention quite a bit - a few studies claim that if the surgery is done by cutting only the T4 level of the sympathetic trunk, while avoiding damage to the other nerves that lie above it (which are so frequently cut as well), the compensatory sweating side effects that arise post-op are minimized so significantly that in some of these studies virtually not a single patient said they were dissatisfied with the surgery at 6-month and one year follow-ups. And there's no apparent explanation as to why surgeons never thought they could solve the palmar/axillary problem by simply targeting this single nerve with minimized side-effects before (to this date some surgeons still cut T2 among other nerves causing the most severe forms CH).
What really surprises me here is that, if the results of those findings are really true and accurate, how can it be that this hasn't been regarded as a breakthrough in sympathetic surgery for palmar/axillary sweating? Why would so many doctors all over the world insist in perfoming the surgery the old-fashioned way, causing so much suffering in people who did not have to experience all the side effects?
ps. Sorry for my non-perfect English, it's my second language.
The links for the studies I've read are below:
Is sympathectomy at T4 level better than at T3 level for treating palmar hyperhidrosis? - PubMed - NCBI
T4 sympathectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis: looking for the right operation. - PubMed - NCBI
http://osp.mans.edu.eg/tmahdy/papers_of_month/0904_T4 sympathectomy for palmar.pdf
(I think I've looked at more of these sites but can't get hold of all of them).
I would love if somebody here could enlighten me on this matter... Cheers to everyone on here