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Wet hands - Causes and therapy in sweaty hands
contents
- Slippery hand and Stinkefuß
- A vicious circle
- A taboo topic
- Sweating under stress
- Causes of very wet hands
- The Frey syndrome
- Consequences in everyday life
- Social etiquette
- Functional problems
- Unhygienic
- Psychic consequences
- Sexual approach
- A tightrope walk
- diagnosis
- treatment
- Sport helps
- Practical measures
- Botox - the nerve paralysis
- aluminum salt
- deodorant?
- Current therapy
- sympathectomy
- prevention
- literature
Slippery hand and Stinkefuß
Heavy sweating has its own effects on the respective regions. Extreme armpit sweat and sweaty feet lead to a smell that other people and often those affected feel uncomfortable.
Moist hands are a relatively common symptom. Numerous simple home remedies can help. Picture: absolutimages-fotolia Sweaty feet or wet armpits put the sweaty especially during puberty from the mockery of classmates, and quickly spread nicknames such as "Axel sweat" or "cheese mash".
However, heavy hand perspiration does not cause odor, but wetness is the cause of social problems. Sweaty feet can be concealed with lace-up shoes in public, while damp hands can lead to situations that put a strain on those affected - for example, by shaking hands with someone else and by drying their hands afterwards.
A vicious circle
In addition, wet hands are rightly considered a sign of nervousness and anxiety. Because these conditions lead to hand sweat in people with normal working sweat glands. For people who are excessively wet, this psychic component may or may not play a role as well.
However, they often find themselves in a vicious circle: once they are afraid of sweating because they fear the social consequences, this increases their heavy perspiration.
A taboo topic
Excessive sweat is a taboo topic. Enlightenment would be necessary. While the general public often equates increased underarm and foot sweat with poor hygiene, heavy perspiration on the hands is a sign of a lack of self-confidence.
Both contain a half-truth: Even people whose sweat production works normally, smell intense, if they do not wash their feet and armpits, do not change socks and T-shirts.
But who suffers from heavy sweat production, whether on the hands, armpits or feet can not do anything for the time being: The feet also stink, if he washes them and the socks change as often as others, the classmates hold their noses, even if she washes her shoulders in the morning, and the wet handshake stays even when he has no social phobia.
In other words, those who chronically excrete too much sweat not only wet their hands under stress, but also when they feel completely relaxed.
Sweating under stress
Humid hands are generally not abnormal, but a natural reaction like any sweat. If the sweat glands work normally, then our hands are rarely moist.
For our body produces more sweat when it gets the information "stress". The biochemical causes are very complex and not fully explored. One reason for this is what traditionally means "to cool one's mind" or "to come down" - that's why we dump someone who's in a rage, even a bucket of cold water over his head.
Excitement, through anger, anxiety or nervousness, causes our blood circulation to work at full speed, and the body heats up. Sweat formed in humans with their bare skin as the body's own cooling system. So we sweat to cool off.
Causes of very wet hands
The main cause of chronically wet hands are overactive sweat glands - at least every second affected person has a genetic disposition to it, and the sweat glands work reinforced from birth.
Triggers can also be emotional. Even people whose sweat glands work normally, but who quickly "get lost" or are over-anxious, have sweaty hands more often than people who are more relaxed about stressful situations.
Fear is a common trigger for sweaty hands. Image: BillionPhotos.com - fotolia In addition, there are specific illnesses and physical triggers: Heavy overweight can also cause excessive sweating such as circulatory problems or an overactive thyroid, heart disease as well as a mental trauma.
In these conditions, it makes little sense to treat the wet hands separately, but to go to the cause, especially because heart disease and severe circulatory diseases have much more dangerous effects than a wet handshake.
The Frey syndrome
The Frey syndrome, medically-awkward referred to as auriculotemporal syndrome or as Gustatorisches sweating, characterized above all extreme sweating on the face and neck, but can also show on the hands.
Those affected sweat when they absorb taste stimuli, so eat cake, suck on an ice cream or chew a steak.
The cause is a misdirection of nerve impulses. These impulses of the facial nerve are usually used to stimulate the salivation - the water runs in our mouths together.
However, these nerves are damaged after an accident or surgery and regenerate wrong, so form a contact with nerve fibers that trigger the flow of perspiration, miss this their actual "contact person", namely the salivary gland.
The transmitter substance acetylcholine remains the same, but the chemical impulses now attach to the sweat glands. When patients remove parts of the salivary glands, the ear or lower jaw gland becomes inflamed, or nerves are severed as a result of trauma, and sometimes the body "repairs" its nervous system incorrectly.
Consequences in everyday life
People who secrete more sweat than the average, but not to an extreme extent, find this annoying. However, as a rule, they have no psychological, social or functional problems.
Social etiquette
Strong sweating, however, restricts social life as well as professional life. On the one hand, this applies to social etiquette: whoever leaves a damp handshake with the business partner, who leaves a sweat film on the ladle at the buffet, "drips in" the wheel of the shared company car, unintentionally gets into situations that are embarrassing for him or others.
Functional problems
At the same time, extreme hand sweat leads to functional problems: for example, those affected have problems holding a glass or lifting weights in the sports center. That also harms them in their job. What is just "a violation of etiquette" elsewhere can be dangerous anywhere a dry hand is needed.
A roofer who can not cling to the scaffolding, a carpenter, a hammer, or even a forest worker who slips the ax: In such jobs, a wet hand can cause injury or even death.
Wet hands also hinder office work - while not life-threatening, but work performance suffers and those affected are frustrated. With wet fingers, I slip on the laptop keyboard and the touch screen, have problems turning on the gear while driving, and can not properly hold the wet razor.
Unhygienic
As a seller and / or customer advisor, it also hurts when I push the product into the customer's hands with a "sweat cover". This has an unhygienic effect on foodstuffs, but does not promote sales of other items. Whether I as a clerk at the Bureau leave sweat spots on an express letter or in the bank spend wet bills - it is not optimal.
Psychic consequences
The problems of everyday life lead to mental stress. The victims are afraid of the unpleasant situations. Often, the over-sweating suffer already in puberty under ridicule and social ostracism.
Often, key experiences are shaped in the form of a trauma: be it the dance school, in which the dream partner pikiert after the longed-for women's choice washed hands or the clique, where the "buddy" ostentatiously drew his hand away, as "Glitschi" him enough wanted.
In extreme cases, those affected avoid all situations that could be embarrassing and therefore all social contacts. Or her self esteem goes down.
Sexual approach
However, social inhibitions may also refer to specific areas where those affected have had negative experiences. One of the first sexual approaches in puberty is holding hands. Very few adolescents have sufficient self-esteem at this early stage, and both are.
Few 14-year-olds who like their counterparts will respond to a wet hand on their knees by saying "I'm not bothered by your hypertrichosis" and no more will say "if my hand is wet, it's because of excessive sweat production". Now, when the worshiper says "that's wet," and may not mean it, it may cause the person concerned to stop trying to get closer, especially if that's not the first bad experience.
A tightrope walk
Those who suffer from sweaty hands find themselves on a tightrope walk that can hardly be endured. Confidently deal with their grievances, implying that people may lack sensitivity to the limitations of others. Who says "I have wet hands, that does not bother me", hears quickly "yes, that does not bother you, but others" and may also be shunned because of his "ruthlessness".
However, anyone who deals too sensitively with the unpleasant situations, and still blames himself for it, consistently evades normal everyday life.
The reactions of the environment and also the reaction of those affected are also often unspoken. Moist hands are also a taboo subject in that hardly anyone addresses them. In a small circle, among the confidants in the company, opposite the partner or the siblings, outsiders talk about the "unpleasant touch" by the sweaty, but they themselves do not say it.
Those affected notice that others avoid them in certain situations. However, since the topic is never discussed openly, firstly, the outsiders do not know that XY has no "character weakness", but his organism works differently, secondly, the victims have no chance together with others to consider how to deal with their complaint.
diagnosis
Whoever has wet hands should consult a doctor. If this person realizes that they do not produce so much sweat because they sweat through a certain activity, then this indicates hyperhidrosis.
Whether you suffer from hyperhidrosis, you can check yourself roughly. Do your hands get wet in stressful situations or when you rest on the sofa? Are their palms regularly so moist that it hampers their everyday lives?
Do you have physical illnesses that may be related to wet hands: heart disease, after-effects of surgery, circulatory problems, severe overweight?
Make a note of these, then help the doctor make a diagnosis and choose the right therapy.
treatment
Moist hands are very uncomfortable, but can get a good grip. If the sweat glands are overactive, but not to an extreme extent, home remedies help.
You can use wash gels that work against oily skin, or rub your hand with powder, such as strength athletes use before lifting weights. Or they can drink sage tea, because it generally works against excessive perspiration.
Sage tea is an old home remedy for excessive sweating. Picture: were-fotolia You can also use ointments like Odaban, which help to prevent excessive perspiration, and they can keep their hands cold, cold dries the skin.
Sport helps
Sport usually helps as well. Especially people whose wet hands are overweight, should be physically active and move. The effect of overweight, high blood pressure, heart failure and excessive sweating can be brought back to normal. This is even true for patients whose sweat flow is at the same time genetically anchored: while they do not return to a "normal level" if they reduce their weight and let their body work, but relieve the symptoms considerably.
If you keep the sport and the healthy diet consistently, then for many of them the wet hands will no longer pose a bigger problem after a while than greasy hair or the intolerance of certain foods. Complaints that limit everyday life, work and social life, so a small flaw that can be resolved with caution: Just as the "stinky foot" keeps his feet and shoes with foot spray in check, ointment, wash gel and powder dries the wet hand.
Practical measures
In mild cases, simple measures reduce the symptoms considerably:
1) Ventilate your home regularly and expose your hands to fresh, cold air as often as possible.
2) Reduce your overweight.
3) Consume less sweaty foods and spices. This includes black pepper as well as chili or ginger.
Botox - the nerve paralysis
Who suffers from extremely wet hands, in which the neurotoxin Botox is a possibility. But beware: It is a major surgery, because Botox paralyzes the muscles and affects the mobility of the hand. If it's just about social etiquette, you should not choose this method.
The treatment is also very expensive: You have to be injected again every six months Botox and spend for each 500 to 100 euros, because a Botox therapy paid the health insurance only with excessive underarm sweat.
aluminum salt
Aluminum salt combines with keratin to close the sweat glands in the pores. The higher the concentration of aluminum salt, the deeper it penetrates the skin. Anti-welding agents with aluminum salts can therefore be well dosed - depending on the extent of welding production.
deodorant?
Some sufferers resort in their despair to deosprays, perfume or aftershave. But that is not a solution: If you spray deodorant on your sweaty hands, rub them with perfume or aftershave, you cover only the smell of sweat, but not the sweat flow - and the problem with wet hands is not the smell, but the wetness. Although deodorized areas sweat less, the sweat in other areas is more secreted.
Current therapy
In current therapy, keep your hands in water and a weak electric current flows through the water. Why this therapy works is still unknown. Research suggests, however, that electrical stimulation increases the stimulus threshold that triggers the impulse sweating.
sympathectomy
The complicated name derives from the sympathetic nerve. This belongs to the autonomic nervous system and from him nerve branches go under the skin and control the sweat production. During surgery, the doctor removes part of the nerve to the right and left of the spine. Without nerve branches, which lead to the hands, there are no impulses and without impulses no sweat flows.
The disadvantage is compensatory sweating. The sweat production as such does not diminish, and instead of sweating on the hands affected now but on the back or stomach.
Nevertheless, most patients find the results a relief - they suffer from the functional, social and psychological consequences of wet hands. A wet back, on the other hand, can be covered and does not restrict grasping.
In extremely wet hands, the health insurance usually pays the surgery. However, those affected and doctors must justify this. So for mental health problems, a recognized psychotherapist or psychiatrist must confirm that the symptoms cause massive psychological distress; In the case of functional problems, physicians must concretely prove this.
prevention
Excessive sweating due to extremely producing sweat glands is often not psychologically conditioned, but the problems in everyday life can be reduced by mental training.
Mental training of "sweaty situations" is not yet fully explored. However, neuroscience findings promise good results in applying such self-suggestions.
Our brain and our nerves react to "real" information as well as suggestive: the body does not know the difference. Even traumatization can be triggered by hearsay, and psychic pain attaches to the same receptors as more physically.
So the potential to "dry" wet hands with self-suggestion is great. Even those who produce excess sweat reacts to cold. To literally imagine that a cold wind dries your hands could cause them to really dry.
Breathing exercises, ie to breathe deep into the abdomen in "sweaty situations" and actively exhale, can also relieve the symptoms. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
literature
Toni Brammson (ed.): Hyperhidrosis. FastBook Publishing. 2010
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)