Excessive sweating on your hands can impede your ability to use your hands effectively and can cause embarrassment. If you're looking for ways to stop your perspiration problem, consider the following:
1. Strong Antiperspirants
Antiperspirants can help control excessive sweating on the hands. However, most antiperspirants will not be strong enough if you suffer from sweating in excess. Look for antiperspirants with tannic acid or 10% to 20% aluminum chloride. If the over-the-counter brands don't provide adequate relief, ask your doctor for a prescription-strength antiperspirant.
Antiperspirants are a temporary solution that can last a a few hours to a day and must be reapplied to retain their effect. To increase the effectiveness of the antiperspirant, apply it liberally at night and cover your hands with thin gloves or a loose layer of plastic wrap. This will allow the antiperspirant to better absorb into your skin.
2. Sweat Controller Lotion
Like antiperspirants, sweat controller lotion is a temporary way to stop excessive sweating on your hands that can work for a period of hours or upwards of a day, although one advantage of sweat controller lotion over antiperspirant is that it will not strip your hands of moisture entirely. The glove or plastic wrap tip can help increase the duration of the effectiveness of the lotion. The lotions you will need should have similar ingredients to the strong antiperspirants, such as aluminium chloride and tannic acid.
3. Medication
Although not everyone is a candidate for medication, particularly if you have high blood pressure, there are some prescriptions that will help keep sweating on your hands under control so long as you stay on the medication. The most common medication is anticholinergics, which keeps stimulation of the sweat glands to a minimum. Common side effects include dry mouth, painful urination and dizziness.
4. Iontophoresis (Electric Shock)
You may be able to stop excessive sweating on the hands with iontophoresis. During this treatment, you will submerge your hands in water for 10 to 40 minutes while low levels of electric ions course through the water, eventually shutting down your sweat glands. Before you see results, you will have to have these sessions roughly every other day for 5 to 10 days. In order to stop the sweating long term, you will then have to return for another treatment every 1 to 4 weeks.
5. Surgery
Surgery is the most effective solution for stopping sweating in excess permanently; however, this solution does have the greatest risk of permanent side effects. The most popular surgery for stopping sweating on the hands is endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy (ETS), which involves a small incision under your armpit through which your surgeon will cut or clamp the sympathetic nerve located at the top of your ribcage that controls the sweating function. This is a fairly simple outpatient procedure for which you will have to be put under anesthesia, but there are risks, such as permanent nerve damage.
Some ways to stop excessive sweating on your hands offer more permanent solutions than others, but they also come with a greater risk of side effects. You may, after discussing your options with your doctor, decide to start with the temporary solutions in order to see if you are satisfied with the results.
