Harley Street Beauty Episode 7:
First aired 26th November 2012.
Dr Dan Dhunna discusses the use of Botox for excessive sweating.

So today I’m treating Tom. Tom is an actor and model. Tom’s major concern is that unfortunately he sweats a lot. This is a problem that is very, very common, but people feel that there’s nothing actually to be done. It can affect their social life, it can affect their work life. I have patients that won’t wear certain colours of clothes because of the sweating.

It’s literally like two buckets of water, it’s kind of embarrassment. Nobody wants to admit you’ve got excess sweat. And I mean, you can buy these sprays, antiperspirants but they don’t last.
Botox has a license in the UK for excess armpit sweating. The way Botox actually works in the armpit is much the same way it actually works on facial muscles.

Botox actually prevents something called a neurotransmitter sending the signal, the nerve signal to the sweat gland. That’s exactly mechanism in which it works to relax facial muscles. It’s very simple, we’re going to map out the armpit area. and then very discretely I’m going to inject very small amounts of Botox just in the skin of the armpit area.

And that little bit of Botox in each of those little sectors will just stop the sweat glands from responding to the nerve signals and providing the body with sweat. This is going to improve the sweating. The way it does that is by reducing the nerve transmission into the sweat gland. It works in very much the same way it does on muscles I normally have to sweat Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see.

I do appologize. What is it you’ve just done Wendy? I’ve just put cold pack onto this young man’s arm, and I didn’t prepare him. So I do appologize. That was incredible. That was borderline pain, pleasure, but actually once you get over it and think of the actual results of no more sweaty armpits, which lasted about two minutes, maybe three.

Can you imagine? I can just get ready to go off into all sorts for the next three months, which I’ve done. And that’s it. That’s it? That’s it. We’ll find out how Tom’s check-up appointment went a bit later in the show. Earlier in the show, Tom visited Dr. Dan to tackle his sweating issue. Dr. Dan’s solution was to inject Botox into Tom’s armpits.

A few weeks later Tom was back in the clinic to see if the procedure had been successful. But before we head over to London Harley Street, we ask you whether you you’d consider this sort of procedure. It in fact does change your life, in a sense. It changes the way you feel about yourself, you’re more confident I think, why not?

Yeah, I agree. It is more socially acceptable nowadays. The idea of growing old gracefully is something that we all should really look at and I think it’s too easy easy to just go out on a whim and say I’m going to change this about me, change that about me, but do we know enough about the long term effects and how it will affect us?

I have actually been feeling amazing since I’ve had my treatment. In the beginning I was a bit apprehensive because I thought I might need more or might need less or, you know, you just have all of these things that you build up in your head that untruths about the whole situation because, you know, I’ve never done anything so I was apprehensive.

But it’s been amazing. It’s been absolutely wonderful. Botox generally last about three to four months. However my personal experience is that when injected into the armpits it does actually last considerably more. That does depend upon a person’s lifestyle, their exercise regime, and obviously how much they sweat in the first place.

And it’s very much subjective. For some people, small amount of sweat can be very devastating. For others, a large amount of sweat means nothing to them. I’ve just come back from being on holiday and all my were sweating like pigs and I wasn’t. I was like Sahara Desert bone dry, remarkable I cycle all over the place all the time, and you just get to wherever it is that you’re supposed to be and you smell fresh, it’s amazing, I can’t believe it.

I mean it’s a huge confidence thing, isn’t it? In the evening in particular, I don’t have any issues any more. I don’t even wear deodorant more. I don’t need to. I just don’t. I wear aftershave and that’s it. There’s just so many amalgamation of small, little areas in my life that it’s helped It’s not cheap but it is worth it.

Botox longevity for cosmetic use does vary. Part of the variance depends upon the amount actually injected. But it’s very important to treat people artistically and not to over-treat them for the results that unfortunately can occur such as frozen faces, and certain side effects such as droopy eyes.

Certain people with large muscles may need need more Botox to get the same sort of results as somebody with slight muscles. For instance, men generally require more Botox to improve a frown line, or crow’s feet or something like that compared to perhaps a woman. So there is an individuality that one has to take on board, but generally speaking, when treated right you normally can get three to four months out of a Botox treatment.