abnormal sweating

Winter Sweating Tips

/ carynjoan / 4 Comments

Winter temperatures are usually great for people with HH! The cold and windy air is great for drying out my hands.

However, once winter hits, people start turning the heat on inside. The heat indoors can really make me sweat. It’s hot on the subway, at work, in restaurants and shops. It’s almost worse than summer! It might be hot in the summer but you can always go indoors for the air conditioning.

At my desk at work, I keep my fan on year round. This is extremely helpful and I will continue to use a fan at work no matter where I end up. It’s a great way to cool off.

On the subway, I will use my scarf or gloves to hold on to the rail. I also continue to keep a small towel in my purse for a quick mop up.

Wearing long sleeves helps too! If I’m having trouble writing and want to be discreet, I just pull my sleeves slightly over my hands to about mid-palm. Dress scarves (vs. winter scarves) can also help cover your hand without drawing attention while writing. Always try to use what you have on you to be discreet.

If you have underarm sweating, try wearing a black open sweater over any shirt. This will cover up any sweat stains you might have. You can also try using sweat-wicking products.

Enjoy the colder weather and try to stay cool indoors!

Caryn

Adaptation

/ carynjoan / 4 Comments

When I decided to go back to school for Special Education, I chose a
focus area of visual impairment. I didn’t have much experience with
people with visual impairments prior to choosing this specialization,
but knew they live an adapted way of life. They use Braille instead of
print, canes and guide dogs to get around, and digital audio output to
do work on their computers.

As someone living with HH, I can say that I also live an adapted life.
I wear certain clothes that won’t soak through, I use a towel under my
hand to write with pen and paper, and I keep a fan going wherever
possible to help dry my hands.

Although we share a need for adaptation, we can both live satisfying
and happy lives. This is what inspired me to want to learn more.

I am specifically learning how to be a teacher of students with visual
impairments (TVI). So far, I’ve learned a lot about different
techniques to use.  Since students with visual impairments cannot
observe what people are doing around them, a TVI can model various
actions by using a technique called “hand-over-hand” or
“hand-under-hand”. This involves the teacher to put his or her hand on
top or underneath the student’s hand while demonstrating a movement
like cutting food or spreading peanut butter on bread. This technique
is proven to be very effective.

Again and again, I learned how the TVI interacts with their students
using their hands.

Now, do you see an issue with this? I have palmar HH. What would a
student think if my wet hands?

Although not ideal, this fact does not deter me from this field. I
still want to  continue learning and help people.

Also, my hands have been relatively dry lately. I’ve been having
success with Iontophoresis and hope it continues. I feel like I can
also wear gloves in the classroom if I start having an issue.

From one adaptation to another, we can all help each other. I’m looking
forward to learning even more!

Finger Printing

/ carynjoan / 2 Comments

In addition to going back to school, I am trying to become a certified Teaching Assistant! My goal is to get some experience working with students in the classroom. I am almost finished with all of the components of the NYS Teaching Assistant certification.

The components of the certification included 3 workshops on bullying and violence in the school, passing a 100 multiple choice question test, and finger print clearance.

Workshops are finished, I passed my test. The final step was finger printing!

Last month, I set out to accomplish this task. I received the official finger print cards in the mail and called my uncle who is NYPD.

It was so helpful to have my uncle finger print me because he knows about my HH. My hands were sweating and I can’t imagine how anxious I would have been had a stranger been finger printing me.

Even so, my prints were not coming out clearly. The sweat on my fingers was making the ink very smudgy and too dark. Although I only needed to send in 2 finger print cards, we printed 5! Hopefully the NYS Department of Education will be able to get some good prints from one of the cards!

I wrote a note about my condition, explaining the prints, and sent it with the cards. My prints might still get kicked back, and I’ll have to do something else for clearance. I’ll let you know what happens!

This is not the first time I have had trouble with finger printing. A while back, I wrote a post about finger printing and digital finger scanning at amusement parks. I feel like sweaty hands really work against us when we need our prints taken! There has to be another way.

Waiting at the station to be finger printed- paper towels in hand to dry my sweat!

Waiting at the station to be finger printed- paper towels in hand to dry my sweat!

 

Iontophoresis with Baking Soda

/ carynjoan / 6 Comments

I’ve been using my Iontophoresis machine once a week for many months now with great success! However, in early October, I noticed my hands were starting to sweat a little more than usual. I was really concerned about this and felt like I might have formed an immunity to the machine.

To help, I started doing treatments more than once per week. At one point, I was using it three or four times in one week. Still nothing was working.

I remembered one of my readers from NYC had said that the water here is pretty soft and sometimes doesn’t work well with Iontophoresis. Until October, I hadn’t had an issue with the water or effectiveness of the machine. I was told that adding baking soda to the water can help by adding minerals and electrolytes.

After adding baking soda to my treatments, I noticed a significant difference. My palm sweating is now more under control. Adding baking soda does make the treatments a little more uncomfortable. It irritates my skin a little more, but it’s worth it!

Sweathelp.org has an article dedicated to Iontophoresis. In addition to baking soda, it says you can even try crushing Robinol tablets in the water.

I’ll let you know if the baking soda continues to work!

 

 

 

 

Entire Medical Journal dedicated to HH

/ carynjoan / 2 Comments

Last week, I received an email from the International Hyperhidrosis Society stating that an entire issue of the Dermatologic Clinics medical journal was dedicated completely to Hyperhidrosis! This is ground-breaking news and I wanted to learn more. The issue is found in October 2014, Volume 32, Number 4. It covers topics such as:

  • Prevalence of HH
  • Impact of HH on Quality of Life
  • Special Considerations for Children with HH
  • Topical Therapies
  • Iontophoresis
  • Botox treatments
  • Oral medications
  • ETS surgery
  • Emerging therapies
  • Resources for patients and sufferers
  • Incorporating diagnosis and treatment into Clinical Practice

You can purchase the entire issue or individual articles. This is a really exciting breakthrough for people with HH. The issue will be available to medical specialists and provide education on our condition and the latest treatments available! Just another big step in the right direction for universal awareness and understanding.

HH and Heredity

/ carynjoan / 1 Comment

Hi all,

I always knew that Hyperhidrosis ran in my mom’s side of the family. Her sister (my aunt) was born with it and so were her two boys (my cousins). I was surprised to hear earlier this year that a cousin on my dad’s side of the family was recently diagnosed with the condition.

My dad told me about my cousin’s diagnosis and I reached out to her. She told me she went to a doctor and was prescribed a product called Hypercare. I had never heard of this treatment before but looked it up to find that its active ingredient is Aluminum Chloride. She is having success with this product!

I am thankful that I can talk to my family members about Hyperhidrosis openly and recently helped out my younger cousin on my mom’s side who hadn’t tried any previous treatments. After sending him and his mom a compiled list of some mild treatment options, he decided to go with an over the counter hand lotion. He is having a lot of success with this product so far! It’s called Dry Grip and can be found on Amazon.

HH runs in my family, but so does support. We are all very willing to listen and talk about HH and help each other out.

Best of luck,

Caryn

Share your HH stories on a brand new site!

/ carynjoan / 2 Comments

Hi all,

I’m excited to promote this amazing new website project from one of my readers, Matthew Roundell. His website is a story telling platform for the Hyperhidrosis community. The site is still in the works as Matthew is trying to compile more stories from people like you!

I submitted my story and I can’t wait to read yours!

Check it out and submit your story today at www.hyperhidrosee.com

A big thank you goes to Matthew for continuing to connect the HH community!

All the best,

Caryn

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How Do You Play Flute With HH? An inside look (with video)

/ carynjoan / 6 Comments

Hi all! I hope you’re having a great start to August!

Next month, my quintet, Washington Square Winds, and I will be releasing our very first full length album, THEY’RE ALIVE! The official release date is September 7.

With that in mind, I have decided to share some of my music with you today. Francis gave me the idea for this post as he said he was curious what it’s really like to play a musical instrument with HH. He’s a trombonist, himself! I included a video to show you my thought process when I play and how HH affects me.

This video was taken during my graduate flute recital at NYU in 2011. I’m playing Ian Clarke’s The Great Train Race. It has a lot of cool extended techniques like playing 2 notes at the same time, singing and playing, and explosive air attacks. This was before I started Iontophoresis treatment, so I was definitely sweating a lot at this point.

  • Another thing I worry about is also related to my appearance. HH typically comes with excessive blushing (as if excessive sweating wasn’t enough). Generally when I’m performing and really nervous, my chest and neck blotch up like crazy!! Amazingly, in this video, you can’t really tell! But as I play, I’m constantly thinking about the audience’s perception of me based on what they see, versus what they hear. In the past, I’ve had people ask me if I was okay after a performance because they saw me blotch up. This bothers me a lot because I don’t want the audience to be concerned about me during my performance. I would rather them just listen and enjoy- no matter what I look like.
  • Having sweat on my hands makes it really uncomfortable to play my flute. I’ll be trying to focus on the music while I feel drips of sweat rolling down my arms or starting to feel the pads under the keys get squishy with moisture.
  • HH is also uncomfortable because it makes my fingers swell- A LOT! It can be difficult moving my swollen fingers fast when I need them to. You can tell that right around 45 seconds in this video, there’s a difficult fast passage that could have been a lot cleaner! My fingers weren’t just cooperating!
  • Sometimes the sweat on my fingers will cause me to slip off the keys too- especially if I’m going fast. At 2:17, it’s barely audible, but my finger slipped on a key and I played a wrong note. I recovered really fast though!
  • A clear picture of my mental state is apparent at 2:52. Remember I was playing this without sheet music in front of me. I forgot what came next and paused a little too long!

This was back in 2011, but I still get these same feelings. My philosophy nowadays is: “You love music, so play like you love it. The audience will see this in you and the music will flow more freely”.

I hope you enjoyed listening to some of my music! If you would like to hear more, please ask me about our upcoming CD!

In the meantime, you can check out my flute website: carynfreitag.com
and my quintet’s website: washingtonsquarewinds.org

Thank you for reading,

Caryn

 

Facial and Truncal Hyperhidrosis?

/ carynjoan / 2 Comments

After successfully treating my Axillary (underarm) Hyperhidrosis in middle school, I have only categorized my Hyperhidrosis as palmar (hands) and plantar (feet). On any average day, I don’t have trouble with facial or truncal sweating. However, when I’m exercising, I am a complete, full-body waterworks!

At my Irish step dance classes, I have been noticing that I sweat all over my body- at least 3 times more than the other students! I can only wear sweat wicking workout clothes now and I use my towel almost constantly during the class to “mop” up. My ponytail is soaked so much with sweat that it drips and it feels like there’s a quarter-inch of sweat caked on my legs and arms.

My classmates notice and always suggest I stand closer to the fan or air-conditioning unit. I don’t think they think much of it, but it’s embarrassing sometimes. It’s also uncomfortable!

Although I don’t consider myself having truncal or facial Hyperhidrosis, I think that my palmar and plantar Hyperhidrosis genes definitely play a role in how I sweat more on my body when working out. Has anyone else noticed this happens to them?

I couldn’t think of a lie, so I told the truth

/ carynjoan / 5 Comments

Yesterday I had a late night with my quintet. We were listening to our recording takes and choosing the best ones for our upcoming CD release. I knew that no matter how late we stayed out together, my night was going to be much longer because I had to get home and use my Iontophoresis machine.

While taking the crosstown bus home through Central Park from the East to the West side, I mentioned to my quintet-mates traveling with me that I had stuff to do when I got home and that I was going to be up late. One member asked what I was up to and I immediately regretted saying anything in the first place.

I couldn’t think of a white lie quick enough- It was late, and I was tired! So…I told the truth.

Me: “Well, this is going to sound weird- really weird. But I have a medical condition that needs treatment sometimes and I have this machine that is kinda like a form of electrotherapy.”

Him: “Oh, man. What does that look like?”

So I told him about the set up, etc. I did all of this without going into what condition I actually have that requires this treatment. It was cool that he was interested and didn’t react negatively, but I know that I have to explain HH. I can’t leave that part out!

Prior to October 2013, all of my quintet-mates knew about my HH. It was such a relief to tell them and have their support. I didn’t have to hide using my towel when I played and we were all more sensitive to trying to avoid hot temperatures in our rehearsal and performance spaces. Since October though, my quintet has accepted new members. These members don’t know about my HH. I’ve been meaning to tell them soon though because it was so beneficial for me when everyone knew before. The situation that happened last night seems like a good segue into that.

I kind of regret saying anything at all, but know that this discussion will push me to open up to them. My quintet is like my family and I know they will be supportive and understanding.

I’ll let you know how it goes!