foot sweating / plantar hyperhidrosis

Foot sweating or as its known in the medical literature as plantar hyperhidrosis is also a part of the excessive sweating syndrome. It does not have the same social impact on the patient as the hand sweating but can be very bothersome to some. There is no specific treatment for foot sweating but many of the patients (About 50%) will show improvement after sympathectomy. When foot sweating is presented alone one can use lotions, or iontophoresis in order to alleviate some of the symptoms. Now lumbar sympathectomy is offered as a surgical solution for those cases with severe plantar hyperhidrosis or plantar foot sweating. Recent evidence from different centers in the world showed that this operation is very effective to treat excessive foot sweating. This operation can be done separately from the Thoracic Sympathectomy but necesitates somewhat longer hospitalization, possibly 1 to 2 days.

New Information on Lumbar Sympathectomy:
The operation can be done endoscopically assisted or in the open fashion. When it is done endoscopically assisted then there are three small cuts made in each flank and obviously attempts should always be done to perform it this way. In cases of technical difficulties it can be done in an open fashion through one incision and the difference in the amount of pain is not that much. Also the cosmetic results from the open approach are very well accepted due to the fact that those single incisions on each side are still small. With regard to the male population so far the information that was obtained from clinical cases is that if the sympathectomy is done below L2 then retrograde ejaculation should not be a problem.

Sweaty feet as the sole presentation of hyperhidrosis appears in less than 5% of the patients. The majority of the patients will also have sweaty hands and this is the reason why its an added benefit when sypathectomy is done for the hands.

To see descriptions of various treatments click here.