I am an acupuncturist. I have severe hyperhidrosis. I can tell you honestly that acupuncture may or may not help. One thing I can say is a majority of people who get treated for a certain issues/condition usually fall in love with acupuncture even when their original condition may not progress as they had hoped. This is due to the holistic balancing nature of acupuncture which results in calming of the flight/fight (sympathetic) nervous system (which can also lead to decreasing in sweating, rapid breathing, digestive problems, headaches) and helps regulate and increase the calm and connect (parasympathetic) nervous system.
Some people with sweating disorders may have great results with just this. Others may not have as good results in sweat reduction but some results from the calming of the nervous system that is promoting the sweating.
Some practitioners also use herbal remedies that can help decrease the sweating as well.
Food therapy/diet can play a role too.
It still a mystery at this point as to why it’s happening, even western medicine doesn’t understand why the nervous system is over-reacting they just know it is. And Eastern medicine has good pattern diagnosis as to how to help sweating too but I’ve only heard of managing symptoms, or managing anxiety or food intolerances or some other deficiency that could exacerbate these symptoms. Eastern medicine tries to coax the body back into a naturally functioning state, whereas western medicine changes/alters the bodies functions with medicine or surgery. Both have their pros/cons.
My personal opinion on it is, depending on whether you sweat just due to anxiety or if it’s anytime/all the time thing you will get different results.
I do feel that acupuncture overall is a wonderful medicine to help calm the mind and keep a good flow of the physiological processes. This can improve current disorders as well as be used for preventative medicine.
If it doesn’t ‘fix’ your sweating, which is doesn’t ‘fix’ mine, it at least may give you a calmer mind and heart about the condition as well as a myriad of other improvements of things, like it has for me.
Things acupuncture has helped for me include:
calmer mind, less stress, no more TMJ, better sleep, better moods, better breathing, little to no IBS symptoms, little to no more heart palpitations and more. overall I’m a happier more accepting person of mine and other peoples issues/abnormalities.
What does it feel like?
Yes acupuncture is gently but it is a needle going into your skin so it could pinch at times. Japanese style is much lighter with much smaller needles that may or may not puncture the skin.
There’s also needle-less acupuncture that can be done with little hand held electrical stimulators.
Or acupressure could be utilized instead as well.
Hope this helps and good luck
