What about excessive sweating in the buttocks area?
Excessive buttocks sweating can be a side effect of ETS where part of the compensatory sweating from the ETS procedure presents itself in the buttocks region.
Cases of primary buttocks sweating, where the patient did not previously have the ETS procedure, are rare but are known to occur. The treatment for the primary cases should be conservative ones with lotion, etc. There have been cases where excessive buttocks sweating was improved after the lumbar sympathectomy procedure that was done for plantar sweating (foot sweating). It is still premature to conclude that lumbar sympathectomy will help primary or secondary cases of excessive buttocks sweating.
Obesity and Buttocks Sweating
Overweight people have a higher tendency to have isolated buttocks sweating but the same solution should also be applied to them in a way that conservative treatment with lotions, possible oral medications, and special clothing with high absorption power should be attempted. The possibility that sub-dermal laser ablation coupled with suction curettage will be of any help is still too early to tell.
Possible Treatment for previous ETS patients
In summary the only surgically addressable problem of buttocks sweating will be those patients who previously had the ETS surgery done and as part of their compensatory experienced excessive buttocks sweating. As mentioned in previous pages of this website there is an improvement with compensatory sweating of the buttocks area when lumbar sympathectomy is done specifically for foot sweating. This could be accomplished when the level of the lumbar sympathectomy is kept as close to the L2 level as possible. By staying close to the L2 level surgically, the sympathetic fibers to the buttocks area are also clamped thus helping with buttocks sweating. As more information is gained more accurate answers can be given. As more experience has been gained when one performs ELS in certain patients where the anatomical layout is showing that certain branches of the sympathetic chain are splitting towards the groin and the buttocks area and those are clamped it will give improvement to those patients in regards to their buttocks and in groin sweating. This does not apply to all patients because the anatomy is different from one person to another.
Do you suffer from this? For those patients who suffer from hydro hidradenitis suppurativa please refer to our groin sweating page.