ETS Surgery

The human body starts sweating when it has been either exposed to heat, exercised a lot, when nervous or due to certain anxiety in mind. This is natural and happens to almost everyone. But if your face, your palms or under armpits sweat excessively, then there is a chance that you may be suffering from either excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis) or facial blushing. An Endoscopic Thoracic Sympathectomy (ETS) surgery is carried out to cure this ailment.

What is an ETS Surgery?

Face blushing and hyperhidrosis can even make you stop socializing and stepping out of your home, as it can be very embarrassing at times. This is one of the reasons that people go for an ETS surgery, as it is considered one of the most effective methods of curing the disorder.

In our body, there are two trunks of sympathetic nerves which control sweating. Ganglia, or long chain of nerve cells form these two trunks. Both the trunks are divided into three regions- the cervical region or the neck, the thoracic region or the chest and lastly, the lumbar region or the lower back. In the surgery, some tissues are physically destroyed in each of the two sympathetic nerve trunks. Usually, the area on the upper thoracic region is operated upon. The surgery is performed by making small insertions under your armpit and near your chest. Then with the help of an endoscope, the surgeon views the interiors of these places to locate the nerves in the upper thoracic region. The surgeon then destroys these nerves so as to stop sweating. The surgery time is short, and usually it takes an hour to perform the entire operation. The surgery costs anywhere around US $8,000 to US $12,000. The good part being, since the surgery is approved by the FDA and performed in US, most of the health insurance companies cover the cost.

ETS Surgery for Blushing

Facial blushing, is when your face changes to red color and there is excessive sweating on the face due to anxiety or nervousness. This may make you uncomfortable while socializing and propels you to stay home more often. While performing an ETS surgery for blushing, the surgeon doesn't destroy the nerve cells, but clips them. This tends to make the whole surgery somewhat ineffective as there are chances that these nerve cells could be activated in the long run, again causing blushing.

ETS Surgery Side Effects

As effective and convincing ETS surgery seem to be, it is as if it's just one half of the story. There have been reported cases of severe and long-lasting side effects of an ETS Surgery. Surgeons may deny this, but the patients have surely a different story to tell.

Excessive Bleeding
If while performing the surgery, the blood vessels around the chest are unintentionally damaged, it results in severe bleeding. Though the number of such cases are very low, the maximum number of deaths reported, are due to excessive bleeding.

Compensatory Sweating
Ironically, for a surgery to stop sweating, the most common side-effect is excessive sweating! As the sweating glands in certain areas are curbed, the body tends to sweat excessively in other areas like the back and lower back. At least half of the patients who have undergone the surgery have complained about this problem.

Numbness
As certain nerve cells are destroyed during the ETS Surgery, there are complaints about not being able to feel any sensation on those parts where the surgery was performed. This is a common side effect when an ETS surgery is performed.

Gustatory Sweating and Horner's Syndrome
These are two side-effects of an ETS surgery which are normally informed by the doctors to the patients prior to the surgery. Gustatory sweating means excessive sweating on the forehead, while eating something spicy or even by its smell. This can be a common side effect, couple of years after the ETS Surgery. The Horner's syndrome may cause eye problems. These problems could be swelling of the eyes, drooping of the eyelids or even sunken eyes.

Recurrence of earlier Symptoms
There have been cases of patients suffering from the same problem of excessive sweating, which they used to suffer from, prior to the operation, after may be a year. No exact reason for this has been found, but normally a surgeon may request you to undergo ETS Surgery again.

A few other side effects may be - constant headache and fatigue, cold feet and hands, reduced blood circulation, collapsed lung, inability to tolerate heat and decreased heart rate.

An ETS surgery is not considered to be very safe due to its side-effects. There are various natural and non-surgical methods available to cure hyperhidrosis and facial blushing. These methods should be preferred over the surgery. Only after all these methods have failed to deliver the desired result, an ETS surgery should be undertaken. Doctors may not give you a clear picture of the problems you could encounter post surgery, so think twice before making your decision. Please consult a trusted doctor to get proper information regarding the surgery and its side-effects.