Excessive Sweating Treatment

Hyperhidrosis is the medical term for excessive sweating and when it occurs in the underarm skin it is called “axillary hyperhidrosis”. This is caused by stimulation of the eccrine sweat glands by the nerve endings which are the final nerve pathways from higher centres in the brain. These nerves respond to different kinds of stress: emotional stress like intimate social situations or public speaking, or physical stress like the increased body temperature that comes with exercise or hot and humid weather.

Some people are routinely troubled by excessive sweating whilst others are only bothered when they are under emotional stress, physically active or over-heated. The nerves that control sweating depend upon a chemical transmitter called acetylcholine which is a molecule produced at the very ends of the nerve fibres. BOTOX COSMETIC® injection is a genetically engineered neurotoxin which can, when injected into the skin, block the release of the acetylcholine to the sweat glands for months!