Stop The Sweat

Beta blockers can be useful for those patients where anxiety is a major trigger of excessive sweating.

How Do Beta Blockers Work?

Beta blockers work in a very different way to anti-depressants. Whereas antidepressants work on the brain chemistry and particularly serotonin, beta blockers work on the sympathetic nervous system. This is considered to be the core area that is different in hyperhidrosis sufferers compared to everyone else.

Beta blockers work by blocking the action of some key chemicals in this system, especially adrenalin and non-adrenaline. In many ways, anxiety is a response to a stimulus. By blocking the actions of these

chemicals, the anxiety or the anxious response in the patient is prevented and they do not excessively sweat.

Compared to antidepressants, one key advantage is that they can be taken as required and do not require days or weeks to build up their effects. So, if a hyperhidrosis sufferer has a major public speaking event coming up then they can take a beta blocker before it.

Side Effects

There are unfortunately some well known side effects of beta blockers such as drowsiness, some brief memory loss, diarrhea and lethargy.

However, unlike antidepressants, they are not habit forming and there are no withdrawal symptoms associated with them.