This surgery is not worth the PERMANANT damage to your health. Do not listen to what the ETS "doctors" will try to tell you. They will downplay the potential side effects. Some will even flat out LIE. Compensatory sweating occurs in 100% of all ETS patients, regardless of what the surgeon claims. Think about it, your sympathetic sweat-nerves are interupted, this does not mean you stop sweating, it just means it will get displaced. This could be a disaster depending on how much you normally sweat on your upper body, which becomes bone-dry because of ETS (at least for most ETS post-ops, which can never sweat anymore on their head and face- even in extreme heat & humidity).
Scary, strange and bizarre side effects occur in most patients many years later. Here are some of the most commonly reported:
Chest pains
Sharp pains in the heart
Constant headaches
Urinary incontinence
Severe acne
Severe dandruff
Trouble breathing
Stuffy nose
Dry burning eyes
Chronic fatigue
IBS
Eczema
Scabs on head
Scalp sensitivity
Facial flushing
Unusually fast heartbeat during physical exertion (almost feels like you're about to have a heart attack)
By the way please note that even though your hands will no longer sweat, this doesn't necessarily mean that you're "cured" of the problem. Now they will be SOOO extremely dry that it's uncomfortable. You might not think so at first, but wait many years later when they are STILL always bone-dry and you're sick of always applying moisturizer (which annoyingly always seems to get everywhere: on your food, clothes, etc.) and sick of having that fingernails on the chalkboard chill in your spine whenever you handle anything dry like cotton clothes, paper, etc. etc. etc. Your hands will always feel like there's a dead layer of skin covering them. And if you live in a dry desert (or high altitude) climate you will really be sorry. AND no matter where you are, the dry winters are brutal.
PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM ETS. YOU WILL REGRET IT IF YOU HAVE THE SURGERY (IF NOT RIGHT AWAY, THEN MANY YEARS LATER). HEED MY WARNING FOR YOUR HEALTH'S SAKE. THANK YOU FOR READING........
Joined: Jun 19, 2006 Posts: 10 Location: Sunshine State
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:10 am Post subject: Thanks for the warning!!
Just wondering how long ago you had the surgery. I had it 1 month ago and so far I am happy. Not to lie to anyone but the dry hands is true. They are less dry than if you use the drysol for a week straight. I feel like a new person since the surgery. The CS is not bad, today I went back to Kung Fu out in a park in S. Florida and yes I had some sweating in my back and stomach but nothing too abnormal. I had some chest pain the first week of the surgery and in the areas where the scars are I still have muscle pain specially when I workout. This I am hoping will go away in time. I have less anxiety, foot sweating, and less armpit sweating to the point that I use zero deodorant. Hope others can share their sideeffects after ETS.
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:25 am Post subject: Re: Thanks for the warning!!
I had ETS over 6 years ago... It wasn't until around the 3rd year after the surgery that I started to realize that I had made a really bad decision. The effects of not being able to sweat on my head was really beginning to take it's toll (at first I thought I would eventually start sweating again, at least a little bit). Excessive dandruff due to the complete inability to sweat and generate oils on my scalp, is very socially embarrassing (dandruff shampoos don't work). Also the bone-dryness of my scalp makes it sensitive and causes tiny scabs to form. My face is always so dry I have to use moisturizer on it daily, otherwise it feels tight and scaly. Plus pieces of dead skin constantly fall off my face, which is also VERY embarrassing. Also I get bizarre acne breakouts on my nose constantly. I guess this is the absolute worst side effect from ETS for me- not being able to sweat from the neck up. For others it's the compensatory sweating in their lower body, even in mild heat. Some people don't even have a problem with compensatory sweating till a couple years later. I guess ETS effects everyone differently. By the way one of the scariest side effects have been sharp stabbing pains near my heart, which started about 3 years after ETS (and continues to this day). Considering I did not have this problem, ever in my life before I had the surgery (and no history of it in my family) I don't know what else it could be- Other than another side effect of ETS. Go type in "ETS side effects" in Google and see what you find. This surgery really should be banned worldwide in my opinion. It's already starting to happen in small parts of Europe and Asia. There are many MANY other problems from ETS that I could blabber on about, but I don't think anyone cares...
Joined: Jun 19, 2006 Posts: 10 Location: Sunshine State
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:08 pm Post subject:
Actually your comments/response are appreciated. I was hoping not to hear that those side effects may come out 3 yrs or so later. I had a weight workout yesterday and I noticed that I was able to sweat on my forehead. This was actually good news to me as I figure my scalp may not get dry. Of course I only had it one month ago.
So if you can still sweat on your head then consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Not being able to perspire from the neck up leads to all sorts of other bad side effects, which you obviously won't have if you can still sweat up there. Do you know what section was cut/clamped? T2, T3, T4?
How much research did you do about ETS before you actually went through with it? Back when I had it, I didn't see any negative comments about ETS, or else I never would have went through with it. Especially considering how widespread the adverse side effects are now reported. All I knew about back then were the doctor's websites, and those are all biased in my opinion. Not like these kinds of real world forums.
I remember when I first got axillary hyperhidrosis that my utterly incompetent "doctor" told me he was going to cut the nerve at a point I was to find out, through looking on the f'ing INTERNET was completely wrong, and this was later confirmed by the man in Britain with the most experience in ETS surgery as being a HUGE mistake.
Thank god I had already had one bad operation with this man already and didn't trust what he was saying!
This is an example of just how it easy it is for this operation to ruin your life.
Joined: Jun 19, 2006 Posts: 10 Location: Sunshine State
Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject:
mazegate wrote:
So if you can still sweat on your head then consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Not being able to perspire from the neck up leads to all sorts of other bad side effects, which you obviously won't have if you can still sweat up there. Do you know what section was cut/clamped? T2, T3, T4?
How much research did you do about ETS before you actually went through with it? Back when I had it, I didn't see any negative comments about ETS, or else I never would have went through with it. Especially considering how widespread the adverse side effects are now reported. All I knew about back then were the doctor's websites, and those are all biased in my opinion. Not like these kinds of real world forums.
I am in the healthcare field and spoke to several surgeons at the Hospital I work at. I actually did a lot of research and had been tracking these surgeries at the Hospital my father works at in Spain. He initially discouraged me because of the extent of the surgery. They were actually going to try the clamp with me but they hadn't done many surgeries with the clamp so they didn't. The whole issue with clamping and them being able to reverse the surgery is kind of a lie which hasn't been tried extensively. Once you clamp the nerve after a few months you damage it b/c of the lack of oxygen and physican damage done by clamping. I had the nerved severed(not clamped) between T2-T3 and the surgeon told me the foot sweating is not supposed to stop based on my surgery but merely b/c of the hands not sweating anymore this decreases anxiety and helps the foot sweating. The surgeon discouraged me from anything about foot sweating due to increased risk of worst compensatory sweating. What I tell others is to do extensive research and if they are going to go ahead with the ETS to make sure they use a surgeon who has extensive experience.
In my opinion, I don't think having a surgeon with little or alot of experience matters that much. ETS itself is an inherently dangerous procedure regardless of how well it's done. I mean vital nerves are being permanantly severed. From my understanding these nerves even play a small role in maintaining normal heart function.....Now THATS alarming. Yes with a less experienced surgeon things could be alot worse, perhaps he could damage something else while messing around in there. But even with a surgeon thats done hundreds of these (like the one I had) side effects are still 100% possible. Just how bad they are depends on how the ETS 'victim' reacts to them. Those sympathetic nerve connections were mapped out there by human evolution for a reason. I think they should not be interupted, especially for a trivial or 'cosmetic' problem that is not life threatening. Too bad I was so stupid back then to not realize this. I thought I found a cure for this social problem of mine, and I guess I became delusional. EVERYDAY I still regret it.
By the way I'm going to take a break from coming to these types of forums for awhile, mainly because I just want to focus my time on other things, finances being one of them.... Plus try to get my mind off of my health problems and "TRY" to be more productive in general. I just wanted to warn people about this surgery. I hope it keeps at least ONE single person from going through with it................
Last edited by mazegate on Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
116 guests
39 members
Forum FAQ
Search
Profile
Private messages
Log in
