Hyperhidrosis

We visited Syarmimi, our lovable 14 year old niece, at her sister's at Sunway Batu Caves, KL last night.  She was recently discharged from the IJN (National Heart Institute) after her sympathectomy for hyperhidrosis.  These are two new words for me.  Life is indeed made very much simpler with google.

Hyperhidrosis is an excessive and non physiological amount of sweat produced by the body. It can be a generalized situation where excessive sweating appears all over the body or focal hyperhidrosis where the excessive sweating is situated in areas such as the hands, palms, armpits, feet or the face.

Sympathectomy is a surgical cure for hyperhidrosis which is essentially finely-tuned and proven surgical procedures that take advantage of the latest endoscopic techniques. 

News of Syarmimi being at IJN was a shocker.  The norm (perception?) is that IJN is always equated to a heart condition.  Alhamdulillah that was not the case for Syarmimi.  Seemed that she has been complaining of her sweaty palms for sometimes.  It grew more serious over time and Papa finally decided to check her condition at the USM Hospital.  They were immediately referred to the KL IJN where the sympathectomy was successfully carried out.

The way I understand it is that sympathectomy involves short-circuiting the nerves causing the profuse sweating.  As the nerves lie deep under the lungs they have to partially collapse the lungs to get to the offending nerves.  All these were done endoscopically, thus not a very invasive procedure.  Syarmimi was discharged the day after the procedure.  Wonder should the medical fraternity approve of the way I made this out to be.

Wishing adik Syarmimi a quick recovery to enjoy the year-end school holidays.