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Groin Sweating – Causes and Treatments Available

Groin Sweating Defined:
Another area of isolated excessive sweating (focal hyperhidrosis) can happen in the groin area. This is an area rich with sweat glands apocrine and eccrine. For those affected patients this can be a bothersome and embarrassing site for sweating. Because of the location sometimes an odor can accompany this excessive sweating. The exact number of patients afflicted with this problem is very difficult to ascertain.

Groin Sweating Causes
No specific cause can be identified currently. Groin sweating has to do with the specific physiological build of the person. Obviously obesity can contribute to this and weight loss is an obvious first step to try and eliminate the problem. Another possible reason for patients to develop groin sweating without having it before may be the side effect known as compensatory sweating from ETS. So groin sweating after ETS can be related to ETS itself. The exact mechanism is related to the development of compensatory sweating.

Groin Sweating Treatment
Conservative methods to treat this problem should start with the application of antiperspirants. Commercially available lotions such as Maxim can be obtained via the Internet. Medically prescribed antiperspirants such as Drysol are available with a doctors prescription. If those do not give any relief then BOTOX® Cosmetic injections can be applied to those affected areas providing temporary relief (About 2 to 6 months). The last option for those resistant cases could be with retrodermal suction curettage. In this procedure, which is done under mild anesthesia, the area of sweat can be scraped and removed through small holes. This particular procedure, retro dermal suction curettage has not yet prove itself as a reliable procedure. The last surgical option is excision of the skin in that region which is a more extensive operation with associated side effects. To evaluate ones condition please talk with your surgeon about it. This particular procedure, the excisional one, is good for those patients who suffer from hydro hidradenitis suppurativa which is a different entity from focal sweating or focal hyperhidrosis.

ELS and Groin Sweating
From accumulated clinical information and observation we have seen some improvements with groin and buttocks sweating after doing ELS for severe medically resistant plantar hyperhidrosis which did not get any improvement after ETS. Some of our patients who came for ELS after ETS (which did not improve their plantar sweating) reported to us that they experienced improvement with their groin and buttocks sweating after the ELS procedure. When the data was reviewed it became obvious to us that under certain favorable anatomical configurations improvement with groin / buttocks sweating can be improved by the ELS procedure. What does this mean? It is very difficult to explain this without going into a huge amount of detail. Each patient should discuss this with an appropriate experienced surgeon in this field before they make any decisions.

Those suffering from Isolated Groin and Buttocks Sweating
This brings us to those patients who suffer from severe isolated groin and buttocks sweating. There is not enough surgical data at this point whether to recommend ELS specifically for these isolated areas of the body. In order to give some answers to patients suffering from this condition we would say there is a chance of trying to do a chemical lumbar sympathectomy to see if any temporary relief can be obtained. Chemical sympathectomy is a non surgical option with limited temporary relief, but if it happens then one should consider doing ELS for this problem. It behoves the patient to discuss this option extensively with the appropriate surgeon.