Before the pandemic, we often shook hands with others at work and in our daily lives, sometimes shaking a pair of cool, wet hands, which was surprising.
In fact, this pair of wet hands may come from a hand sweat patient, and hand sweat is a manifestation of hyperhidrosis.
A 26-year-old Sichuan research girl Si Jia has been plagued by hand sweat for nearly 20 years, from primary school because of excessive hand sweat wet homework was reprimanded by teachers, teased by classmates, growing up often encountered can not recognize fingerprints, mobile phone can not be used, wet test papers, dare not shake hands and other issues, her hand sweat often flowed down the palm to the arm, to her life and psychology has a serious impact.
Worried about the risk of surgery, she is not yet afraid to do sympathetic chain cutting, and uses antiperspirant and antiperspirant electrostroke therapy herself, but these methods can not cure the symptoms, and can only relieve symptoms for a certain period of time.
According to UpToDate Clinical Consultants, hyperhidrosis (hyperhidrosis) is a common condition in which sweat glands secrete more sweat than the body's physiological needs for thermoregulation, which can lead to serious social, emotional, and occupational consequences. Idiopathic hyperhidrosis, which is limited to certain areas of the body, is called primary focal hyperhidrosis, and generally has symptoms in childhood or adolescence, and most patients have the most obvious symptoms before the age of 30, and gradually reduce after the age of 40, and the symptoms of a small number of patients will last for life. Focal symptoms are most often found in the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and armpits.
The prevalence of hyperhidrosis is estimated to be 1% to 5% of the population. Palm hyperhidrosis often causes fear of shaking hands with others and soiling paper, and patients may have difficulty completing work and recreational activities that require dry hands to grasp, and patients report that hyperhidrosis often causes personal and professional social problems.
There are also many celebrities with hand sweating, Gu Juji once hosted the fourth issue of "I Am a Singer" when he exposed himself to "hand sweating" due to the silence of the microphone on the stage, because of too much hand sweat to wet the microphone caused by a short circuit to hold 3 microphones.
Sijia, who describes herself as a "sailor", describes the inconvenience caused by hand sweating from elementary school to the present, which does not seem to be a critical illness, but has always been a serious problem for her that cannot be discharged.
The teacher threw away my workbook
In the third grade of elementary school, I was reprimanded by the teacher in class, and I realized that my hands loved to sweat.
It was a Chinese class in 2005, I and my classmates learned to write pens, and after the homework was handed in, the teacher suddenly threw my pen writing homework under the podium and reprimanded me in front of the whole class, "Why are you writing so dirty and messy?"
I ran to the lectern and picked up my homework to see that the pen writing on it was indeed blurry, and the page was littered with dirty ink marks. I reacted to the fact that I was sweating too much on my hands, wetting my homework notebook, writing my pen on the wet paper, and the words that came out were all messy and clumps of ink.
Since then, I have learned to put a toilet paper pad at the junction of my little thumb and the palm of my hand when I write, so that the sweat on my hand is sucked down by the toilet paper, and if there is too much sweat, I will change another toilet paper.
At that time, I was still young, and I felt too much sweating on my hands, which was limited to writing homework, and I used more toilet paper than others, and my personality was more cheerful and optimistic, and I didn't have too much trouble for this.
Until junior high school, there was a time when my classmates liked to play the game of "guess who I am", which is to cover other people's eyes from behind and let others guess who you are. Once, naturally, I covered the eyes of a girl with a good relationship from behind and shouted happily, "Guess who I am?"
Unexpectedly, the girl shouted in horror: "Whose hands are so sweaty?" She broke free of my hand, and I quickly put my hand behind my back, and the girl looked at me with a slightly disgusted look, and I kept smiling awkwardly, but I was overwhelmed inside.
From that moment on, I had a sensitive understanding of the troubles caused by the sweat of my hands, others would have been disgusted when they touched my sweaty hands, my hands were sweaty, and I should not touch anyone with these sweaty hands anymore...
My hands would sweat like water droplets
Source: Sijia
Mom said my hand sweat was inherited from my father
When I knew that my sweaty hands would make others dislike me, I had the idea of "curing these sweaty hands."
I inquired about these keywords such as "how to do more hand sweat" and "hand sweating" on the Internet, entered some "sailor" posts to understand, and communicated with some netizens, at that time I remember that the online introduction of hand sweating was caused by excessive sympathetic hyperactivity, but I did not know what the sympathetic nerves looked like.
But by learning some basics, I learned at the time that the severity of hand sweat was different. I have a junior high school classmate who also loves to sweat, but her hand sweat is limited to the palm of the hand will be slightly moist, and my hand sweat is more turbulent than her, in addition to sleeping very little, usually the palm is basically wet state, if it is before the exam or other emotional tension, sweat will "spray out", I hold up the palm, sweat continues to flow down the arm, relative to the hand love to sweat a little student, I am "severe, waterfall sweat".
In the middle school entrance examination, college entrance examination, in order to avoid hand sweat wet test paper, I bring a stack of toilet paper into the examination room, like this extra thing, will be specially checked by the invigilator, to prevent the toilet paper on the inclusion of things, I want to explain to the teacher. Sure enough, the toilet paper on the hand during the exam was wet with sweat after a while and needed to be replaced from time to time.
Later, through the internet information, I knew that the effective treatment method for hand sweating was "minimally invasive thoracoscopic bilateral thoracic sympathetic chain amplitude", but as a student, I was still worried about the risk of surgery, and some netizens said that surgery was likely to cause compensatory sweating, and although the hands did not sweat, other parts of the body may be wet.
I checked the information on the Internet is still ignorant, told my parents that I want to treat hand sweating, my father said that his hands also loved to sweat when he was young, and when he was older, he was naturally better, and my mother also thought that my hand sweat disease was inherited from my father.
In fact, after the age of 50, my father's sweating on his hands did change a lot, and he became less sweaty.
But at that time, I was still a beautiful girl, thinking about healing every day. My mother took me to see a Chinese medicine, the pulse, grasp the medicine, but after eating Chinese medicine, my hand sweating did not improve, but with the increase of age, I did not dare to shake hands with the first person to meet, did not dare to hold hands with good friends, although some friends said it was okay, I was still unwilling to extend my wet hand.
In addition to sweaty hands, my feet are also sweaty, in the summer I dare not wear sandals barefoot, it is easy to slip, in winter the sweat on the feet will still wet socks, cold is uncomfortable. In addition, I still dare not go to manicure and foot treatment with my friends, for fear of being found to be embarrassed by sweating on my hands and feet.
The daily state of my hand
After graduating from college, I worked for two years and then went to graduate school. Be very careful when working, when carrying documents, avoid getting wet, and wipe your hands with a tissue at any time. In the office, I am very careful every day, and I have to pay special attention when using other people's mouse, keyboard and other electronic products, for fear of leaving sweat on it and being disgusted.
I would choose to go to school in the winter to learn to drive, so as not to get my hands wet and the steering wheel and be scolded by the coach. But unexpectedly, due to excessive hand sweat during the exam, fingerprints could not be recognized.
The phones and tablets I've used will leave a patch of sweat stains, and the instruments I've played will rust easily... When the sweat of the hands is the most severe, the whole hand is swollen, like a pig's trotter, and sometimes eczema appears, and it is uncomfortable to look at yourself.
Friends say that people who love you will not dislike you
At the beginning of March this year, I went to a hospital in Chengdu for treatment, and the doctor diagnosed it as hand sweating, which was more serious, and recommended surgery.
"It's just a minor illness, and it doesn't affect anything, it's not necessary, how dangerous the operation is." Every time my parents and I mentioned surgery, they replied that they would not recommend surgery.
"It's really nothing, people who love you won't abandon you." Whenever I refuse to hold hands with a good friend, the good friend will comfort me like this.
But in fact, when I went to the hospital to see a doctor, the doctor told me that many people think that sweaty hands are not a disease, this is indeed a disease, if your parents and friends feel that it is not a disease and does not need treatment, I as a doctor can call you to explain to them.
"It's just a small illness, so many years of hand sweat has not affected my physical health, there are so many more serious incurable diseases in this world than hand sweat, I can grow up healthy to this age has been very lucky, because the little hand sweat disease trouble is really too pretentious." 」 I used to comfort myself like this.
But I have to admit that such a "small disease" is really affecting my life, and the psychological burden caused by hand sweat is actually more serious. This makes me less confident in my interpersonal interactions, and I am constantly afraid of being discovered and disliked. I became cautious in my relationship, feeling that I was a "flawed" person who did not deserve the "perfection" of the other person.
I must also get used to myself with wet palms, and find a way to deal with the embarrassment of hand sweat in my life, but I have not stopped thinking of curing hand sweat. The idea of surgery still appears in my mind every five minutes, but at present I am still a student and cannot afford the cost of surgery, on the other hand, I am worried that other parts will sweat instead after surgery, so I have been hesitant.
In addition to surgery, I have been looking for and trying other treatments. I searched the Internet for various methods, using various antiperspirant potions and antiperspirant ointments, but all with little success.
In my "sweaty life," I've learned some self-teasing in self-loathing. In fact, I have a lot of good friends, everyone already knows that my hands sweat a lot, and they don't mind, and even we often joke about my sweaty hands together.
In the winter, I would spread the palms of my hands against the lights and take pictures of the steam that was bubbling up, saying that this was my "fairy breath". I told my friends that I wasn't suitable for collecting tickets and the like, and I would get all the tickets wet. I saw on the news that Gu Juji had exposed his hand sweating, so he sent him a private message on Weibo, but he never received a reply from him.
Electric shock, a short time to make the "sailor" become "dry hand"
Recently, I saw an electric shock therapy online, and I bought sweat suppressors and antiperspirant lotion online.
What makes me happy is that on the first day of electroshock therapy, my hand sweating disorder has improved significantly, I can't wait to share this with my friends, my hands have an unprecedented dry feeling, and I seem to have a kind of happiness that rains down and leaves and a new chapter in life.
The antiperspirator is a square box, cushioned with a towel, two hands on it, the palm will be tingling when the shock, and the hand will be dry and itchy after use. The sweat machine is not small, and it cannot be used unconsciously in the case of someone.
In addition, the sweat stopper is also a little troublesome to use, the merchant told me that the continuous shock for 10 days, with antiperspirant can keep a month without sweating, each shock 40 minutes to 1 hour. When you are shocked, your hands must be placed completely in a shock disk filled with water, which means that your hands cannot do anything other than watch TV with your eyes. After the shock, you need to spray antiperspirant lotion immediately to sleep, and your hands can't touch anything else.
While using antiperspirant electrostatic therapy, I was also just in a relationship. The electric shock made my hands dry for a while, and I could finally hold the other person's hand generously, but on the other hand, I didn't want the other party to know that I wanted to hide the sweat stopper in the shared place and use the sweat stopper when the other party was not at home.
Use a sweat machine
The doctor told me that this method of electric shock does not cure the symptoms and does not solve the underlying problem. Usually I also think that the use of sweat machine is a bit troublesome, often lazy not to use, and will be painful, itchy, red, and even too dry, and then shake hands when others will think your hands are very hot.
Later, my lover found out that I had hand sweating, but did not care, which also touched me. I don't know if I'll have surgery in the future when I become financially independent.
But what I can be sure of is that "others" are not as concerned as you think you are. Only the people who really matter around you will care about your feelings and will tell you that "it doesn't matter" and "it's not your fault". And all I can do is find a treatment that works for me and mentally tell myself to be "normal."
I also after many years to untie this knot, in fact, many people have one or another "small diseases", like I am sweaty hands, maybe others are hairy, hunchback, grinding teeth, bad breath, fox odor, not known, these small problems will not affect life, but more or less will cause life inconvenience and psychological inferiority.
Recently, the plot of a TV series that touched me, the male protagonist told the female protagonist that he had many problems, including teeth grinding, snoring, hand sweating when he was a child, the exam paper would be broken because of sweat, and he had surgery but compensatory sweating on his back. The female protagonist told the male protagonist, "I like it so much."
I hope that one day, we can treat ourselves like in the play and accept everything about the people you love.
Liang Jun, attending physician of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, told occasional cures that hand sweating is generally more common in young people, especially those up to 30 years old. Most patients will have wet palms and chills, which are exacerbated when emotions are tense and anxious.
Depending on the degree of sweating, patients can be classified as mild, moderate, and severe. Mild patients present with wet palms, with sweat on the hands dripping in droplets within 1 minute. In moderate patients, symptoms range from mild to severe, sweat can be seen in the palms of the palms of the palms, and sometimes peeling and herpes.
According to Liang Jun, hand sweat disease has a family genetic predisposition, strictly speaking, it is not yet fully understood in medicine its pathogenesis.
A more common understanding is that hand sweating is mainly caused by dysfunction of the sympathetic nervous system, and the patient's thoracic sympathetic nervous system is overexcited, resulting in the release of more neurotransmitters from the postsynostal fiber synapses, which bind to the corresponding receptors on the surface of the sweat glands, causing hypersecretion of the sweat glands. During this process, the structure of the patient's sweat glands themselves does not have any pathological changes.
Liang Jun mentioned that for hand sweating, doctors generally recommend that patients undergo surgical treatment, because the surgical effect is the most accurate and long-lasting. At present, the mainstream surgical method is thoracic sympathetic chain amputation, which is a minimally invasive procedure.
However, some patients develop postoperative complications such as compensatory hyperhidrosis, pneumothorax, Horner syndrome, and cardiac complications. Compensatory hyperhidrosis is relatively common, with increased sweating in the thoracic back, waist, abdomen, or thigh-buttock area of postoperative patients. However, with the improvement of the cognition of hand sweating disorder and the improvement of surgical procedures, the incidence of compensatory hyperhidrosis has decreased.
At the same time, patients can also be treated with non-surgical treatment, including topical antiperspirants, electro-ion osmosis therapy, and botulinum toxin blocking. Liang Jun said that on the one hand, these therapies may not produce the expected effect, even for many patients have no effect, on the other hand, they need to be used repeatedly for life, not only expensive, but also may bring side effects, such as long-term use of antiperspirants can easily cause skin irritation symptoms such as rashes, itching or pain.
This article was reviewed by Liang Jun, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine
(Su Zihan also contributed to this article.) ）
Author: Si Jia
Producer: Li Hualiang
First image source: Courtesy of the author