Sweaty Hands

Excessively sweaty hands are an embarrassing problem and can be significant enough to make marks on fabric and paper, and also smudge ink as you write. The problem is that the hands and soles of your feet contain the densest collections of sweat glands in your body, up to 600 individual glands per square centimetre, and if you are prone to excessive sweating than it will likely be your hands and feet that are the most affected. Excessive sweating can be genetic, you may simply be predisposed to producing more sweat, or perhaps you have slightly larger than average sweat glands. It can also be triggered by excitement, nerves or fear. Sometimes dealing with the route cause of any anxieties can be the first step in treating excessive hand sweating.

People sometimes find sweaty hands can impede their jobs, especially if they are handling a lot of equipment or using a keyboard. There is a special powder on the market that will dry hands, which was originally designed for use in sports to improve grip on things like gymnasium bars and tennis racquets. You can buy this from most sport suppliers and products usually come in a liquid form, which dries to a powder once applied to the hands. Some people also find rubbing an astringent such as witch hazel or geranium oil into their palms can help temporarily ease excessive sweating. It is also possible to purchase various over the counter antiperspirants especially for hand and feet, which usually contain aluminium chloride. These are also used for armpit sweating, but they are not quite as affective on the hands as the glands differ slightly.

For cases of excessive hand sweating there are various treatments you could consider, such as Iontophoresis. This should be available through your local hospital or physiotherapist, and involves soaking your hands in a shallow bath of water, through which a low frequency electrical current is passed. This works by numbing the nerves that trigger sweating, but you may need a series of treatments before it takes affect, and will also need to continue monthly treatments in the future to keep sweating from reoccurring.

For extreme cases you may wish to consider a surgical procedure called a sympathectomy, which has been proven to be highly successful at curing excessive hand sweating. This involves permanently disabling the nerves that trigger sweating on certain areas of the body, but it has been shown that this may cause an increase in sweating on other parts of the body, such as the abdomen. This is a relatively safe procedure and as yet no significant side effects have been reported, but people may experience a slight weakening in their hands, and as with any procedures that are designed to inhibit sweating, some people may find it difficult in the future to maintain normal body temperature in hot, humid conditions.