溫氏現代針灸 溫崇凱中醫診所-耳針眼針頭皮針舌針權威-跟診日誌

With Acupuncture, Surgery is Not Required for Patients with Hyperhidrosis

Hyperhidrosis is a dysfunction of body fluid metabolism. Body fluids are a type of fluid, where the dysfunction of fluid distribution is manifested in excessive sweating and urination. Therefore, the dysfunction of body fluid is also a type of metabolic dysfunction of fluid. Sweat, one form of body fluid, needs to be dispersed through the Qi in the lungs whereas urine, another form, needs to be evaporated through the Qi in the kidneys. From the western medicine perspective, the secretion of the sweat gland is governed by the sympathetic nervous system. Hyperhidrosis is a result of excessive functioning of the sympathetic nervous system. Generally speaking, the purpose of sweating is to dissipate body heat when the body temperature increases. However, the cause of abnormal, excessive, and regional sweating of the hands and feet, a condition that is quite commonly seen, is unknown. Most of the common forms are congenital or primary focal ("essential"). The treatment of hyperhidrosis in western medicine mainly involves undergoing surgery to disconnect the sympathetic nerves, but the post-surgery compensatory sweating still causes the patients embarrassment.

Clinically I have seen quite a few patients with excessive perspiration in the hands or feet. However, those that I had encountered during my observation at my master's clinic had been more severely afflicted than normal. In my recollection, there had been three patients, with the first one being a student from a renowned girls' senior high school in Taipei. Possibly due to the academic stress, she had indicated that as soon as the school bell rang at 9am, her underarms would start sweating excessively. Her self-esteem had been so low that she had even not wanted to be part of the graduation group photo. After being treated by Dr. Chong-Kai Wen, my master whom I greatly respected, her condition stabilized and she was no longer troubled by it. The second patient was a young female. Her condition had been heavy sweating, so much so that it would drip off her hands. She had been very afraid of needle injections and tried to dodge out the way during the acupuncture needle insertion. While my master was inserting the needles, he asked her how she was feeling about the hand sweating at the time of insertion. With disbelief, the patient replied, 'It's magical! I think it's being relieved!' The third patient, also a female, had been a surgeon in a famous hospital in Taipei. Her hand sweating had severely affected her work. She had also been aware that the compensatory hyperhidrosis would not be able to resolve her condition. After racking her brain for solutions, she had decided to seek Chinese medical treatment. She had found my master via internet search and tried the acupuncture treatment. During the second course of treatment, she indicated that her condition had improved by eighty percent.

From the perspective of Chinese medicine, the treatment of hyperhidrosis needs to focus on the insufficiency of Qi in the lungs, the deficiency of the heart blood and the imbalance between nutrition and the body’s defense mechanism. With acupuncture treatment, the alleviation of excessive sweating in the hands or feet is immediate. The key still lies in the nervous system. Although the cause of excessive perspiration in the hands or feet is unclear, the treatment focusing on the nervous system is fundamental. With no requirement to undergo surgery to disconnect the sympathetic nerves ­– and therefore no unwanted side effects of compensatory perspiration –, acupuncture is the perfect antidote. The only thing worth mentioning is that, for patients with severe perspiration, in addition to acupuncture, thread embedding is required, especially on the T3-T4 (on the thoracic vertebrae) and the 4th-5th (on the lumbar vertebrae) of the spine. According to patients' feedback, embedding threads in the back and lower back is able to stabilize the condition more effectively.