Botox injection for hyperhidrosis

Your consultant has diagnosed you with hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) and referred you to us for Botox injections. Please read this leaflet before coming into hospital for your Botox injections.

When you arrive at the dermatology department at Brighton General Hospital you will need to check in at the reception, then a member of the nursing staff will ask a few questions to ensure your treatment is appropriate. Please feel free to ask any relevant questions.

You will not be able to have Botox injections if you are pregnant, considering becoming pregnant, breast feeding, suffer, or have been diagnosed with any muscular or heart problems. This will also apply if you are taking certain antibiotics or use any drugs as muscle relaxants, or if you have any bleeding disorder or taking anticoagulant drugs. Please contact us on 01273 665030 as soon as possible to postpone or cancel your treatment.

Your sweat glands work when you get a message from the body’s nervous system, if they get too many messages they keep on working and you can sweat excessively. This is called hyperhidrosis; if this happens under your arms it is called axillary hyperhidrosis.

Please do not shave under your arms or use deodorant during the 24 hours prior to your appointment time. Please wear dark / black clothing as iodine solution is painted onto the skin, which will stain for a few days.

The treatment involves an iodine solution and starch powder being applied to your armpits in order for us to identify the areas that you sweat. This will be followed by a series of small injections into the skin. The needles are very fine and the amount injected each time is tiny. Although there is some stinging the whole procedure takes approximately twenty minutes and is not too uncomfortable.

You can resume normal activity immediately after the treatment but please refrain from using deodorant for at least 2/3 days.

Botulinum Toxin, otherwise known as ‘Botox’ is a treatment given by injection into the skin.  It is a preparation of protein and when small doses are injected into the skin, it blocks the signals from the nervous system that supply the sweat glands; this stops them working so hard and prevents them from producing so much sweat.

Botox is not a permanent cure and some people may get greater benefit than others. In hyperhidrosis Botox helps to stop or greatly reduce the symptoms. This will usually happen within two weeks of treatment and the effects may last between six and seven months.  If you find that this treatment has helped you, it can be repeated, this will give you the greatest benefit. (Under the NHS you will be allowed two treatments of Botox after which you will have to seek any further treatment in the private sector).