Botox Could Curb Excessive Sweating too

Botox, a chemical used in cosmetic treatment, can also stop excessive sweat, German doctors report. It is already approved by the FDA to treat severe underarm sweating.

Botox, the magic toxin, can apparently be used not just to iron out wrinkles. It can also be used to curb excessive sweating, German doctors have found.

Botox contains a tiny amount of the botulinum toxin. The toxin blocks the transmission of acetylcholine from the nerves to the muscle.

Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter which send a message to the muscle telling it to contract or tense up. With the flow of acetylcholine blocked or significantly reduced, the muscle can no longer retract and it relaxes. As a result, the wrinkled areas smooth out and soften.

So also acetychline could temporarily block the nerves in the underarm that stimulate sweating.

It is this property that has been successfully used by a team of German doctors at Dusseldorf to treat excessive sweat in a 23-year-old woman.

Ever since childhood, the woman had experienced bouts of excessive sweat in her right forearm and the back of her right hand.

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There would five daily bouts of excessive sweating, on an average. The sweating episodes had become more frequent and troublesome over the years, embarrassing the woman. "Her hand literally dripped with sweat, affecting her work," according to the doctors..

But the Botox shots stopped the woman's excessive sweating. "The treatment was well tolerated and the patient's quality of life appreciably improved," write the doctors in the medical journal Lancet.

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Source-Medindia
MED