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Sweaty Feet (Plantar Hyperhidrosis):

(New News!) Fortunately, a new specific surgical solution for Plantar Hyperhidrosis was fine tuned over the last few years. The anatomical relation of the sympathetic chain responsible for excessive foot sweating (plantar hyperhidrosis) was better defined and now doing endoscopically assisted Lumbar Sympathectomy can help with plantar hyperhidrosis.

More Options For Excessive Foot Sweating
Performing upper Thoracic Sympathectomy for excessive hand sweating was helping patients partially with excessive foot sweating. Until recently no specific operation was offered to those patients who continued to have problems with their excessive foot sweating. Surgeons in other countries developed Lumbar Sympathectomy which is used to help with excessive foot sweating. In this approach a specific segment of the sympathetic chain within the lumbar region is cut or clamped to relieve excessive foot sweating. The important difference between Thoracic Sympathectomy and Lumbar Sympathectomy is that the Thoracic Sympathectomy helps with excessive hand sweating and Lumbar Sympathectomy helps with excessive foot sweating. It should be understood that even though patients who suffer from hand sweating also suffer from excessive foot sweating the Thoracic Sympathectomy will help mainly with excessive hand sweating. For those patients that the upper Thoracic Sympathectomy did not help with their foot sweating they now have the possibility of Lumbar Sympathectomy to cure their excessive foot sweating.

Update 2007:
In the last international meeting about sympathetic surgery held in Brazil a few more pieces of information became available. In three centers around the world (Brazil, Austria and France) lumbar sympathectomy became available for patients who suffer from excessive feet sweating either as a primary location or as it comes most of the time associated with palmar hyperhidrosis. For most of the cases done on women there was a great deal of success. The group in Austria applied this method also to the male population and the side effects such as retrograde ejaculation did not materialize into a major issue. One should know that the numbers of these cases done for males only is not substantial enough to bring us to any definite conclusions. What we can say is that so far is that it does not cause impotence or erection problems but the issue of retrograde ejaculation should be discussed with the surgeon in great detail before any decision is made. For some patients the retrograde ejaculation was a temporary one but again if a male patient is considering this operation for severe plantar/feet hyperhidrosis this should be a major consideration while discussing the possibility of Lumbar Sympathectomy with your surgeon.

Pain after this operation is an issue but it should only be a temporary one. A decision to go forward with this operation should be considered only after a detailed discussion with the surgeon to perform the procedure occurs. To learn more about the details of lumbar sympathectomy click here.

In summary, as excessive hand and foot sweating become better understood in the medical field we can now say that those problems can be helped with surgical approaches. Excessive hand sweating (palmar hyperhidrosis) can be helped in about 98% with upper Thoracic Sympathectomy but with this procedure excessive foot sweating can be helped only partially. Now thanks to some clinical work done in other countries such as Brazil and Europe excessive foot sweating can be helped with lumbar sympathectomy. For patients on whom Thoracic Sympathectomy did not help with their excessive foot sweating Lumbar Sympathectomy is a valuable and available procedure.

Learn more about Lumbar Sympathectomy

Other topics of interest:

• Sweaty Hands
• Facial Blushing / Sweating
• Armpit Sweating
• What is ETS - Endoscopic Thoracic Sympathectomy
• Details of the surgery
• Patient Testimonials
• Younger Age Hyperhidrosis
• Frequently asked questions
• Ask Dr. Reisfeld a question
• Request an information packet and evaluation

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