It is normal to sweat when you exercise, or the weather is hot.
But when you sweat all the time and it becomes excessive, it can be a health problem.
Recently, a study examined a health condition called hyperhidrosis.
This is a condition in which people sweat excessively to regulate their body temperature.
The study was led by experts at De Montfort University Leicester.
The main symptoms of hyperhidrosis are excess sweating, which can be all over the body, or limited to certain areas, most commonly the underarms, hands, feet, and face.
Although hyperhidrosis is primarily a physical burden, it can deteriorate the quality of life and influences the patient’s mental health, work productivity, and social life.
However, so far scientists still know little about this health condition. This makes it impossible to develop effective treatments.
In the study, the team surveyed people with hyperhidrosis and healthcare professionals who treat them what questions they would like research to answer.
They aimed to build a Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) that can bring patients and healthcare professionals together to help develop the research.
So far they already surveyed 268 people and got nearly 600 research questions.
Through the survey, the researchers found that this disease has a wide range of severity.
Some people only have minimal symptoms that cause a small inconvenience or minor embarrassment.
But other people could suffer from much more severe symptoms and their quality of life becomes much worse.
For example, people with severe hyperhidrosis may have very sweaty hands and they simply cannot hold a pen or use a keyboard. This means they cannot do their daily work efficiently.
The researchers also found that many people had never heard of the condition before they were diagnosed with it.
These patients are eager to know more about the health condition and want to receive better treatments.
Currently, there are several temporal treatments that can help control disease symptoms.
Patients can take medications or have surgeries.
One option is taking oral medications such as anticholinergics. This drug works by blocking the nerve endings throughout the body.
Another option is Botox. It works by blocking a chemical at the nerve endings to prevent activating the sweat glands.
The researchers suggest that future work needs to get a better understanding of the disease and develop better treatments to help cure the disease.
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