If you suffer from excessive sweating there is great news for you today. A new local solution may cure you without major surgery.
"This is a real medical condition called hyperhidrosis. It makes hands, underarms and other areas sweat profuse and often. It affects millions. The only cure was major surgery, until now," Dr. Bruce Hensel said.
Nursing student Cameron Willd went to the doctor to address his sweating problem, which was interfering with his life.
"I could be sitting outside in the snow and I would be dripping sweat from under my arms, uncontrollably dripping," Willd said.
He tried everything.
"There was really nothing that helped it. There were no prescription deodorants or antiperspirants, nothing helped. I was taping things under my arms, I was buying sports wrap and wrapping my entire upper torso and my shoulders just so I could hold pads in place to not sweat through them," Willd said.
Cameron tried a new method to control his sweating, one that provides a permanent solution.
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It's called the Vaser Ultrasound, a minimally invasive procedure that inserts a probe through a small incision in the skin.
"The sound waves from the Vaser, which is an ultrasonic probe, sends sound waves from the tip of the probe into the skin and these sound waves actually destroy the sweat glands," said Dr. Pearlman Hicks.
"What we do is we want to obliterate as many as the sweat cells as possible so that way we can cut down on the amount of sweat that's produced by the patient. I think this is a great procedure because there's very little down time. The risks are not great. We can do this under local anesthesia or general anesthesia," Hicks said.
Cameron got the procedure, and says his sweating has been reduced by 75 percent, and is now normal. It's a big load off.
"It has made a tremendous difference in my everyday life, because I don't have to worry about it anymore," Willd said.
"The procedure costs about $4,000 to $5,000. Insurance doesn't cover it yet, but may in the future. No major side effects have been reported. More study is needed," Hensel said.
