Old treatments for Armpit Sweating
Botox®or Dysport® (botulinum toxin injections)
Botulinum toxin injections are very effective to treat Armpit sweating or axillary hyperhidrosis - but the results are temporary and some doctors, clinics or hospitals charge a very large amount for the treatment.
Doctors often prescribe different doses - lower doses don't last very long. Therefore quite often a price that is quoted for botulinum toxin may seem very good - but if you check the dose given, it may be very short acting.
Therefore when you ask for a quote - check what dose you are being given. The full doses for the commonest treatments are:
- Botox® - 100 units in total (50 Units per side)
- Dysport® - 500 units in total (250 Units per side)
These doses should last 6 - 9 months for Armpit sweating - clinics often give only 1/4 of these doses but still charge the same amount!!! This means that you have to have re-treatments every 6 - 8 weeks!!!
Therefore if you do want to have this temporary treatment:
- Check you are having a full dose
- Find out the cost of the full dose
At the Whiteley Clinic, we always give a full dose of 500 Units of Dysport® at a price that many clinics charge for a 1/4 dose - so be very careful what you agree to.
ETS - Endoscopic Transthoracic Sympathectomy
ETS is major surgery. It is described more fully in www.sweating.co.uk and it is very good for sweating of the hands or face.
However, it is not a good or sensible option for Armpit sweating (axillary hyperhidrosis).
Cutting the sympathetic nerves to the whole of the face and arms causes many more problems - such as severe compensatory hyperhidrosis (sweating elsewhere in compensation for the area treated). Also it is a major general anaesthetic operation across the chest that now doesn't need to be done.
As such, surgery for armpit sweating (axillary hyperhidrosis) is best performed by laser sweat ablation (LSA) which is a local anaesthetic approach, targeted only at the armpits and with far fewer complications and risks than ETS.
