Excessive Sweating and Body Odor: Homeopathic Approach

Sweating with body odor is a normal phenomenon of your body which occurs as a result of metabolic processes happening inside you. There are special glands in the body which secrete it. These glands are of two types. One for the watery, odorless secretion termed as eccrine glands. These open directly on the body surface and have a generalized distribution over it. Their secretion helps in cooling the body surface as it evaporates. The other one for the thick, viscous secretion is known as apocrine glands. These are present in areas where there is dense hair growth such as armpits and genital area. Secretions from these glands when come in contact with bacteria on the surface, it gets odor in it.

The amount of secretion of your sweat depends upon many factors like physical activity of your body, emotional state of the person etc. For example, if a person is facing any fearful situation, he/she will have more sweating. Pattern of sweating is different among different people. Some people perspire very little while others may perspire excessively in the same atmospheric conditions. Some might have too much sweating on palms and soles with offensive odor and rest of the body has very less perspiration while some have profuse sweating on their head with or without odor.

Generally, people having hyperhidrosis may have offensive body odors. Though it is a general character of their body but it turns out to be a big problem for them while being socialized. Reason for this offensive odor is having high level of salts in their sweat resulting in increased bacterial reaction over it. The area of excessive sweating and offensive odor depends upon the type of gland involved and its distribution over the body.

Common areas for excessive sweating with offensiveness are feet, groins, armpits, genitalia, area behind ears and umbilicus. Unusually, rest of the skin may also get involved.

Other risk factors and causes for excessive perspiration and offensive odor include puberty age group, obesity, diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism etc. Persons having diet containing too much spices are also prone to it. Persons who have excessive foot sweat and wear shoes for a longer time are prone to offensive foot odor.

Homeopathic Treatment for Excessive Perspiration & Body Odor

The stinky foul body odor can limit a person’s social interaction out of shame and embarrassment. Deodorants and powders used for camouflaging the body odor are only temporary and very short-term methods. They are just suppressive techniques and do not eliminate body odor from the root.

The aim of the Homeopathic remedies is to cure body odour rather than suppressing it. While selecting remedies, the site of the body part emitting odor is considered along with any specific kind of character of body odor. The character of odor may vary from person to person like sour, fishy, fetid, cadaverous, putrid, garlic-like, onion-like or pungent. In addition to these symptoms, characteristic constitutional symptoms of patients like likes and dislikes in food, appetite, thirst, sensitivity to heat or cold and any symptom that stands out dominantly are given a lot of importance while recommending the best remedies.

Most effective homeopathic medicines for excessive sweating & body odor are Silicea, Hepar Sulph, Psorinum, Baryta Carb, Rheum.