Still sweating in cold weather?
We take a closer look at hyperhidrosis, so you can make it through winter without feeling like a wet blanket.
ENRICH Clinic is moving to South Yarra in Jan 2025 – Read More Here
At ENRICH Clinic, we have a wide range of dermatological and cosmetic body treatments tailored to individual body and patient needs.
At ENRICH Clinic, our treatments are performed by our medical team consisting of doctors, nurses, and dermatologists and are tailored to each patient’s skin health needs.
ENRICH Clinic is committed to your skin health and well-being with a range of dermatological & cosmetic treatments tailored to the individual. Our treatments are performed by our medical team consisting of doctors, nurses, and dermatologists.
Skin health is essential for everyone. ENRICH Clinic has a wide range of technologies and dermatological solutions to help you achieve your skin care goals.
Hyperhidrosis, a condition affecting thousands of Australians, is defined as excessive sweating, primarily affecting the axillae (armpits) and extremities (hands and feet). It can be an embarrassing problem, impacting self-esteem, clothing choices and social activities. Regular deodorant doesn’t offer any relief, with people resorting to absorptive pads to soak up excess sweat and choosing dark clothes to hide sweat marks.
Our hyperhidrosis treatment Program can help set you free from your sweaty prison.
ENRICH Clinic is now home to the latest technology for the treatment of hyperhidrosis. MiraDry uses microwave energy to target both sweat and odour glands in the under-arms. The procedure is a quick, non-surgical alternative to other hyperhidrosis treatments that sees a 90% decrease in under-arm sweat in 90% of patients treated.
Medical-grade topical deodorants and some medications often cause unacceptable side effects, while hyperhidrosis treatment is very invasive. Injectable muscle relaxants however, tend to well tolerated and act by reducing the stimulation of the sweat glands.
At ENRICH, hyperhidrosis treatment with injectable muscle relaxants are performed only by our skilled doctors. It is important to be aware that it may take 2-3 weeks following the injection process for the full benefit.
Contact us to arrange a medical assessment of your hyperhidrosis and treatment plan with Dr Michael Rich.
Hyperhidrosis is the fancy name we have for being a bit too sweaty for our liking, or if you like, excessive sweating. The way our sweat glands are turned on or off is via nerve signals, so when we treat hyperhidrosis with neuromodulators, what we are really doing is stopping the ‘start sweating!’ nerve signal from reaching its target: the sweat gland. Blocking the nerve is a very effective – albeittemporary – method of reducing sweat production. It works very well, but all excessive sweating treatments are imperfect.
Injectable hyperhidrosis treatments last for many months, but it eventually gets reabsorbed into your body and the effect disappears, usually six-monthly. This hyperhidrosis treatment may be suggested when other treatments have not produced results since the process itself can be quite uncomfortable, particularly when we’re talking about the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.
We can target your underarm sweat glands and groin sweat glands with a series of injections for temporary relief from excess sweating. Neuromodulator injections for sweating usually only work well on small areas because we can’t relax too many muscles or nerves, or it could disrupt other functions of your skin and body, which we don’t want.
You have two types of sweat glands – eccrine sweat glands and apocrine sweat glands – with both a tiny tubular structure in the skin known as an exocrine gland – it squirts stuff out onto your skin as opposed to into the blood (which endocrine glands do).
Eccrine sweat glands are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system and regulate your body temperature. You get hot, and the eccrine glands get mostly water onto the skin’s surface so that evaporation provides cooling.
If you remember science class, and that energy never disappears but only changes form, then you can understand how evaporation works to cool you – heat is transferred from your body into the water, which then passes into the air – out of your body. Additionally, our skin feels cooler when the breeze hits moist skin if the air outside of your body is not already quite water-laden (humid). A fan causes the water on our skin to evaporate faster, taking the heat with it – cool, huh!
Only mammals have eccrine glands, but not all animals have them all over our bodies like humans. In fact, only a few do – for example, horses and bears – while some other animals like cows, donkeys, dogs, cats and sheep only have sweat glands in their paws or lips. This is why dogs pant to cool down – same process, but using moisture in the breath. Smaller animals are not able to lose that much water so do not sweat at all.
Your apocrine sweat glands are associated (generally) with hair follicles, and continuously secrete sweat that contains fatty molecules into the glands. These glands are mostly concentrated around the groin, anal area and armpits, and are not used for cooling, but as a type of chemical messenger. Ever heard about ‘the smell of fear’? It’s a real thing, and your apocrine glands are responsible.
These glands work all the time, but they really ramp up their action when you feel stressed emotionally. The tubule wall contracts, expelling this fatty sweat onto the skin. Bacteria break this sweat down into smaller, odour-laden fatty acids. These specific glands are not active in children; only after puberty does the ‘on’ signal for apocrine glands appear, indicating their usefulness in our adults lives, unbeknownst to us. (Our sense of smell goes way beyond what we think we can smell – our noses are molecule detectives.)
The number of sweat glands in each of us varies hugely, but the areas in which sweat glands are placed are always the same. Sweat glands may exist, but not be active.
The palms are estimated to have about 370 sweat glands per square centimetre, so the average hand could possibly have thousands and thousands of sweat glands on the palm alone. The back of the hand by contrast has about 200 per cm2 , the forehead about 175 per cm2 , the breast, belly and forearm, about 155 per cm2 . The back of the legs, however, are thought to only have between 60 and 80 sweat glands per cm2 .
On your finger pads, the sweat glands are irregularly set, and because the skin on the feet and hands is so thick, the way sweat glands are interlaced into the epidermis is somewhat different to the rest of the body. This is why our hands and feet feel different than other parts of our body when we sweat.
There are a few things that cause human beings to get sweaty.
Try our excessive sweating treatment in Melbourne.
*Results may vary from person to person
Yes, hyperhidrosis can be caused by a few different medical conditions. You will need to be evaluated for these conditions prior to any hyperhidrosis treatment.
How your procedure goes depends where you are being treated on your body. The armpit usually requires a few injections with a very fine needle, normally without anaesthetic because it’s not painful. It can be uncomfortable, but it’s over quite quickly. Numbness may linger for a few hours, but it should resolve.
The results usually take a week or so to appear. You’ll need to avoid any massage treatments around the injection area, vigorous exercise or any pressure – the action can dissipate the injection fluid and make it less effective. Please note that this treatment is not permanent and reoccurring treatments are often required.
You may see a small bruise appear at the injection site, which will disappear over a few days. Some people get flu-like symptoms as a side effect, or even more rarely, you may sweat in a different area of your body as a sort of compensatory act of your body. Side-effects are very uncommon, but your doctor will go through everything with you in detail prior to the treatment.
You cannot get these neuromodulating injections if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have some specific medical conditions.
Call us on 03 9500 9500 to make an appointment and discuss your sweating issues.
*With all surgeries or procedures, there are risks. Consult your physician (GP) before undertaking any surgical or cosmetic procedure. Please read the consent forms carefully and be informed about every aspect of your treatment. Some surgeries have a mandatory seven-day cooling-off period to give patients adequate time to be sure of their surgery choice. Results may also vary from person to person due to many factors, including the individual’s genetics, diet and exercise. Before and after photos are only relevant to the patient in the photo and do not necessarily reflect the results other patients may experience. Ask questions. Our team of dermatologists, doctors and nurses are here to help you with any of your queries. This page is not advice and is intended to be informational only. We endeavour to keep all our information up to date; however, this site is intended as a guide and not a definitive information portal or in any way constitutes medical advice.
We take a closer look at hyperhidrosis, so you can make it through winter without feeling like a wet blanket.
If you’re tired of taking a spare top everywhere, wasting money on useless antiperspirant and worrying about your sweating, we can help.
Compounding the benefits of your treatments by combining treatments can make a huge impact on results: the 1 + 1 = 3 effect!
Sweating is a complex set of interactions that involves multiple systems within us. We use the skin, glands, and the nervous system, plus areas of the brain that control our core body temperature.
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Enrich Clinic acknowledges the Traditional Lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the East Kulin Nations on which we work and trade. We pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging. We extend our acknowledgement and respect to the LGBTQIA+ community who we welcome and support. Read our full Acknowledgement Statement here
ENRICH Clinic is relocating to 8-10 Howitt St, South Yarra in January next year. We will continue to operate as ENRICH Dermatology with our existing team and services, but we will now share facilities with the Dermatology Institute of Victoria.