How To Stop Excessive Sweating

Hello. I am Dr. Gemma Newman and I am a GP and broadcaster and today I would like to help you with a few top tips to improve your health.

Now this can be a very embarrassing problem but help is at hand. Before I talk about things you can do to sweating though I just want to go through a few important points. Now the first thing to say is that their maybe an underlying problems to why you're sweating.

Now this is more likely if it's new, if it's not symmetrical or if it's affecting your entire body. Now this maybe due to simple things like cold of flu or another kind of infection. But more serious problems could include Tuberculosis and medications that make you more prone to sweating.

Certain hormone imbalances like thyroid problems. So it's really important that you see your doctor if any of this might be true for you. Other things that may cause excess sweating is alcohol consumption and also emotions when we feel in particularly nervous or anxious we do tend to sweat more.

So what could we do to prevent sweating? Well there are certain things we could do to ease it and number one would be to wear loose fitting clothing preferably cotton as this tends to make you sweat less. Other things you can do is to work on footwear. Now everybody's feet sweat but what you could try to do is wear things like sandals or leather shoes which are bit more breathable compared to shoes like trainers or boots which are more prone to make your feet sweat.

Other things you could try is to alternate your shoes. So if you're getting sweaty feet as well as a sweaty body you want to make sure that your shoes are completely dry out before you try to wear them again. So alternate shoes on consecutive days for example.

Another option is to wear an anti-perspirant rather than a deodorant now sometimes you could get these simply from the shops but other times you want to get a medicated anti-perspirant. Anti-perspirants containing aluminum chloride is particularly useful fore reducing your sweating. Another things you could try to do is to avoid any triggers.

So if you know that certain situations or certain types of clothing as I said before will make you sweat then it's best to try to sort that out or avoid that situation. Secondly Cognitive behavioural therapy can sometimes help especially if there is an anxiety component to you excess sweating. If that is not working it might be important then to see you doctor.

There are a few things you can try that your GP would have to refer you for which will includes Botox injections(these have to be done every few months if they are going to be successful). Iontophoresis which involved passing a weak electrical current through water to prevent or reduce the amount that your sweating and in very severe cases surgery. Now sometimes these treatments are private and they always require a referral so it's worth seeing you GP if you are really struggling.

So good luck I hope these tips prevent you from sweating too much.