It’s not uncommon to know of someone whose mere presence around you makes you gasp for air. Of course, the burden of social courtesy and politeness prevents you from reacting immediately or making faces to express your displeasure. Sometimes, this smell comes knocking masked in the strong smell of deodorants as well, something that means that the ‘smell’ is still becoming a social embarrassment for the person concerned. Imagine that person is you!
Entering a room full of people and smelling heavily of the sweat — this stink is not just discomfort for those around but also for the one who has it — significantly lowering the self-confidence, and of course, the likeliness of coming out as a pleasing personality. Surprisingly, as against the common notion that sweating is a hygiene concern, most of the population suffering from excessive sweating or body odour have a bodily condition and no matter how much they clean themselves up, the sweat glands remain hyperactive almost always.
Since India is a tropical nation, sweating and body odour are naturally major concerns for us. So, how does one deal with it? Buy and spray ourselves more deodorants? Maybe stay in AC all the time or rub lemon on our underarms to mitigate the sweat smell? Alternatively, we can also take specialised body odour removal treatments. Some of them are:
Antiperspirants
Antiperspirants are best used as a temporary solution because blocking perspiration regularly isn’t the right thing to do. Also, do not confuse antiperspirants with deodorants, they are totally different.
Iontophoresis
This procedure involves dipping your hands and legs in a medicated solution for longer durations to release the body toxins. With no theoretical experiments backing this procedure’s effectiveness, the observations/results have mostly been experiential and vary from case to case.
Botulinum toxins
This is the most effective non-surgical procedure available today. Botulinum toxins, if injected in the right amount and at the right place, help in almost curbing the issue for a really long duration. In some cases, however, booster doses may be
required.
Surgical procedures
Surgical procedures are recommended only for extreme cases where the patient does not respond to botulinum toxins, too. In this procedure known as endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy (ETS), the surgeon makes an incision on the nerve of the sweat glands. This procedure is very effective, but almost all cases face the side effect of compensatory sweating where the body stops sweating at the designated place but to compensate for it, starts sweating at another location. However, there is now a non-surgical substitute which is based on the patented miraWave technology. This creates a consistent focal energy zone at the dermal fat interface which reduces the sweat, odour in just one treatment. Parallely, the hydroceramic cooling further protects and cools the epidermis. Thus, you can get 90-100% solution to your sweating and body odour concerns in less than an hour, making it a quick lunchtime procedure with almost no downtime at all.
(The author is founder, Kosmoderma Skin & Hair Clinic)