I though I would create this thread to document my experiences with Iontophoresis over coming months…and perhaps years!
First a bit of background on my sweating. I’m a 29 year old male, and I have had significant sweating on my hands and feet for as long as I can remember. When I was a baby, my mom said my feet would get cold and clammy in my crib. My sweating happens at random, although it is exacerbated by stress or exercise.
After finding the video on YouTube from shannonbowling, and links to this website, I decided to try and make a DIY iontophoresis machine. I started out with four 6V batteries, but later upgraded to a 24V poweradapter from powerstream.com. I do both my hands and feet simultaneously, with my hands in disposable baking pans and my feet in Aluminum cooking pans.
For my hands, I fill the baking pans with about 1cm of water, or enough so that my finger nails are not covered. While doing the treatment, my hands are resting on the bottom of the pan. Initially, I found that my wrist was getting shocked where it rested on the edge of the pan, so I covered the edge with duct tape which eliminated that problem. For my feet, I fill the pan with enough water so that my arch is covered. This means my toes are completely submerged. Both my hands and feet get slightly red while doing treatments, although it goes away after about 30min.
The first week was the hardest. It took a while to get use to the pain, and it didn’t help that I had some canker sores on my hands. I also found that my skin was getting itchy in the areas that had been treated. Over the first 7 days I did 20min sessions (10min at each polarity), and then after reading some recommendations on this website, I bumped it up to 30min (15min at each polarity).
Doing one treatment per day, I didn’t notice any change over the first 10 days. In fact, I think my sweating may actually have increased. Then, after day 12, my sweating almost stopped! It was a weird sensation, because there were times when it felt like I was (or should be) sweating, only to find that my hands were bone dry! I continued treatments everyday until day 14, and now on day 18 I have cut back to every other day.
I would describe myself as 97% dry. I still sweat after heavy exercise, but it is very minimal. I’m waiting for a high stress social situation to see what the effects are, but I am very optimistic.
This last weekend I went out and bought some moisturizer, since my hands and feet are so dry that I am concerned about getting cracked skin.
My plan is to slowly cut back the maintenance treatments, going from every other day to every third day etc one week at a time. Ideally I would love it if one treatment a week was sufficient, but we will see. Also, I am often away from home for 2 weeks at a time during the summer, so I will report what happens there.
This has all happened so suddenly, that I haven’t come to reality with what this means socially. However, I have high hopes for the road ahead…and I’ll keep you updated!
First a bit of background on my sweating. I’m a 29 year old male, and I have had significant sweating on my hands and feet for as long as I can remember. When I was a baby, my mom said my feet would get cold and clammy in my crib. My sweating happens at random, although it is exacerbated by stress or exercise.
After finding the video on YouTube from shannonbowling, and links to this website, I decided to try and make a DIY iontophoresis machine. I started out with four 6V batteries, but later upgraded to a 24V poweradapter from powerstream.com. I do both my hands and feet simultaneously, with my hands in disposable baking pans and my feet in Aluminum cooking pans.
For my hands, I fill the baking pans with about 1cm of water, or enough so that my finger nails are not covered. While doing the treatment, my hands are resting on the bottom of the pan. Initially, I found that my wrist was getting shocked where it rested on the edge of the pan, so I covered the edge with duct tape which eliminated that problem. For my feet, I fill the pan with enough water so that my arch is covered. This means my toes are completely submerged. Both my hands and feet get slightly red while doing treatments, although it goes away after about 30min.
The first week was the hardest. It took a while to get use to the pain, and it didn’t help that I had some canker sores on my hands. I also found that my skin was getting itchy in the areas that had been treated. Over the first 7 days I did 20min sessions (10min at each polarity), and then after reading some recommendations on this website, I bumped it up to 30min (15min at each polarity).
Doing one treatment per day, I didn’t notice any change over the first 10 days. In fact, I think my sweating may actually have increased. Then, after day 12, my sweating almost stopped! It was a weird sensation, because there were times when it felt like I was (or should be) sweating, only to find that my hands were bone dry! I continued treatments everyday until day 14, and now on day 18 I have cut back to every other day.
I would describe myself as 97% dry. I still sweat after heavy exercise, but it is very minimal. I’m waiting for a high stress social situation to see what the effects are, but I am very optimistic.
This last weekend I went out and bought some moisturizer, since my hands and feet are so dry that I am concerned about getting cracked skin.
My plan is to slowly cut back the maintenance treatments, going from every other day to every third day etc one week at a time. Ideally I would love it if one treatment a week was sufficient, but we will see. Also, I am often away from home for 2 weeks at a time during the summer, so I will report what happens there.
This has all happened so suddenly, that I haven’t come to reality with what this means socially. However, I have high hopes for the road ahead…and I’ll keep you updated!
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