As far as the body’s natural mechanisms go, sweat is a good — and necessary — thing, a means of thermoregulation that keeps your body at a healthy temperature, whether you’ve just run five miles or your landlord insists on waiting until after Memorial Day to turn on the A/C. But for 2-3% of Americans, sweating is more than an inconvenience (the kind that entails having to throw away a white T-shirt every once in a while): It's excessive.
Hyperhidrosis is the clinical term for excessive sweating, a common disorder that often affects otherwise healthy people. For those who suffer from it, it can be embarrassing, a bona fide confidence killer that can even negatively affect your personal and professional life. That's why media planner Sydney Slatko turned to MiraDry, a FDA-cleared, noninvasive treatment that uses micro-wave energy to destroy sweat and odour glands for good, to deal with her "sweat situation."
"I sweat pretty much all the time, and it gets way worse when I'm nervous," Slatko said. "It definitely impacts my self esteem, and I find it really embarrassing, honestly." So she headed to cosmetic dermatologist Robert Anolik, MD, of Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York, to undergo the procedure. There's little to no downtime associated with MiraDry, which Dr. Anolik describes as an "exciting new procedure," and the most common side effects are swelling, numbness, and tingling. According to RealSelf, the average price of the treatment runs around $2,325 — which, for the sake of comparison, comes out to around 322 sticks of Certain Dri prescription-strength antiperspirant.
Whether you're considering the treatment for yourself or just want to see how it works, check out the video above to watch MiraDry in action... and to find out just how "painless" it really is.