Sweating is a natural body function to cool the body, but uncontrolled sweating, as in the case of palmar hyperhidrosis, may hamper work-related activities (typing, writing, handling papers, grasping objects, etc.). Ordinary and easy tasks like putting on make-up, buttoning a shirt, and cutting fingernails become extremely difficult. What’s worse is that initiating social contact and maintaining relationships become very uncomfortable as well.

In most cases, hyperhidrosis or excessive sweating has no known cause. While symptoms usually occur after puberty and continue through one’s entire life, it may have started since childhood for some. And in such cases, the condition may have a hereditary cause. Other contributory factors to this condition are emotional distress, anxiety, nervousness, or stress. Surprisingly, for some people, using a harmless skin product such as a skin lotion can also aggravate hand sweating.

Physical activity or a heightened emotional state stimulates the sympathetic nerve system, and adrenaline is sent into the blood system. The adrenaline signals the increase of heart rate and blood pressure, and sweat glands produce sweat to regulate the body’s temperature as a result. This is normal.

But for about 0.1% to 0.2% of the population, these physiological body processes are exaggerated which makes them sweat excessively (regardless of the room temperature), sometimes at unlikely times (even when sleeping!). A hypersympathetic activity of the body best explains excessive sweating for no apparent cause.

Those who suffer from severe palmar hyperhidrosis have cold, wet hands that drip with sweat, which are often causes of embarrassment. They are conscious of their condition and try to hide it from others, either by wiping or hiding their hands behind their pockets. They usually dread handshakes or hand contact. In the long run, all these frustrations build up, and could even lead to social withdrawal.

A treatment option available for those who suffer from excessive hand sweating or palmar hyperhidrosis is thoroscopic sympathectomy. It’s actually a surgical procedure, which involves cutting of a nerve found in the chest. It’s also a treatment for reflect sympathetic dystrophy and hand vascular diseases. However, many are apprehensive with sympathectomy as a viable solution to their condition because of fear of compensatory hyperhidrosis (CH).

Compensatory hyperhidrosis, which occurs after surgery, is a condition where other (non-treated) body parts (e.g. back and trunk) sweat excessively to compensate for the reduced sweating in the treated body part (e.g. palms or armpit). Although there may be reported incidents of CH from patients who have undergone sympathectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis, much has yet to be explored by medical researchers to substantiate the occurrence.

Those who suffer from palmar hyperhidrosis in addition to other medical conditions like hyperthyroidism, menopause or obesity, sympathectomy treatment is not advised. Similarly, individuals suffering from tuberculosis may not be allowed to undergo this treatment.