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Hi csmess,

You make a point that hadn't occurred to me. You see, I think the big difference between my case and most others here is that I don't live in the US. In Spain you can happily wait for 3 months to get your phone line put in, a lot of our roads are crap and anything involving paperwork will take over a year to complete. So, maybe not the best country out there, but if you break a leg, or you get sick you can go to the hospital and will get cured and won't have to part with a cent. You don't see adverts for medication on TV (other than the odd cold medicine ad) and the very thought of advertising surgeries and other such things is preposterous. It really is mind boggling how the most powerful country in the world doesn't care for the health of its own people, it's no wonder that problems like these arise. I'm not surprised doctors there lie about the outcome of their surgeries, it's more money for them!

Sorry for going off on a tangent like that, but it is a subject that just really does my head in.

Anyways, what I was trying to get at with all this was the following:

Back in the day when I was researching ETS, I think amongst the first, if not the very first, of the search results I encountered was the no-ets site which I'm sure you're all familiar with. Needless to say it was as scary and intimidating as I'm sure its creator wants it to be. Amongst other top search results was that forum which I spoke about, where I got most of my other information. I think I have seen it mentioned here a few times, it was called something like ETSB or some other acronym. That is the place where I saw the positive and negative reviews. It gave me a clearer idea of what to expect.

I can see things have changed now and the surgery has become more popular as even from a Spanish location I'm getting US hospitals cropping up on my search results nowadays. It's very unfortunate that this is the case and that the disinformation being spread because of it is so wide, but this is clearly not something I condone. Just because the surgery is promoted in a disgustingly conniving way, doesn't mean everything has to be scrapped altogether. I think a midpoint can be found; more on that below.

Rubberducky, I am not on any medication whatsoever, nor have I ever been. I'm rather anti-medication to be honest. Although this is likely to turn everyone against me, I'll admit that I do to a certain extent 'self medicate' through the habitual use of marijuana, although I don't notice this affecting my hyperhidrosis or CS in any way.

Ugyan, I'm sorry, I didn't entirely comprehend your post. I gather that you are saying nobody can form a balanced opinion based on the conflicting information between people's experience and the 'facts' that the doctors have to offer. When you say "To read someone's post about being happy and then another post of someone being unhappy is not 'being informed' I'll have to disagree with you to a certain extent. Although you may not become informed as far as the scientific principles go, you are certainly far more informed as to what to expect than you are talking to a doctor who in all probability has not had the surgery done on himself.

Say I go to buy a mattress and the brochure says that scientifically this mattress is the best thing since sliced bread, and will cure all your aches and pains for the following reasons, and then lists a beautiful list of scientific facts which are overwhelmingly convincing. Now I'm the kind of person who won't take things at face value, and wonderful as that mattress may seem, I'd really like to talk to some people who have tried it out. Scientifically the mattress should cure all aches and pains, but after talking to several buyers I find that it has several other problems, like they find it impossible to sleep on. Well I'd never have known that from the scientific facts but I'm happy I talked to those people because now I'm far more informed and know what to expect.

A pretty crap analogy I know, but I couldn't come up with a better one on the spur of the moment. What I'm trying to say is, I'm a real person, and I realise everyone is different, so I'd like to speak to other real people to know their opinion on something before going ahead with it. So excuse me if you don't find my research methods adequate enough, but I think I was fully informed going into the surgery and moreover am glad that I was not "protected from myself".

NLajoie, you make a good point when you say that this surgery has destroyed many lives, and if things continue along this same path, then banning would indeed be the best option. But I think things should be taken in another direction. Look at what you say, there aren't any statistics! I'm amongst the people that say that the people for whom it has worked out are too busy enjoying life to come on here, and although I'm sure that the number is below what the surgeons state, I also don't think it's such a minimal number as you think it is. What would be great is if there was an unbiased database with statistics on this so we could at least form a correct opinion. Parting from there, we could see the rate of failure and see whether it really should be banned, which may well be the case. If the failure rate is minimal, this should be the parting point for much more research to be done. Why do some people react better than others? How can we detect which people this surgery should absolutely not be performed on? The point is, more research needs to be done and the existing evidence needs to be compiled into something useful to avoid people suffering needlessly with this operation, without taking away the hope of it working for others. I guess this viewpoint is hard to understand when your life has been ruined by this surgery, but it's also hard for me to totally condemn the same surgery which has turned my life around for the better.

Severed, your post gives much food for thought. I'm sorry that you have been pushed to breaking point, that really sucks. I'll tell you this though, I was suicidal before my surgery, I ended up in the hospital and everything. OK, admittedly it wasn't all about hyperhidrosis, I have other issues too, but I won't deny it was a major factor as it influences many things from social life to your career. I'm not saying that people can't be happy with hyperhidrosis, all I'm saying is in my particular case I had reached a point where I was willing to try anything and that included a surgery which had much negative feedback. If things would have gone wrong for me, chances are that I would have gone through with it and killed myself. I'm not doing my argument any favours by saying this, but then not everyone is like me.

Thanks Chicpea, your comment is much appreciated. I was indeed born and raised in Spain, but attended a private British school since the age of 3, hence my English, which is actually better than my Spanish.


Dear Jin,

Just because I can string two sentences together in a semi coherent fashion does not make me a 'recruiter'. I'm sorry, but if that's the sole thing you base your 'recruiter criteria' on, no wonder you're so paranoid, you're certainly surrounded by recruiters wherever you go.
Woooo! Better run and hide under whatever rock you crawled out from. THANKS CHESHIRECAT!!¡¡!¡!

Tell you what, why don't you try this thing I'm very fond of, it's called common sense. Common sense should dictate that if I were trying to get people to undergo expensive, non life-saving surgery I probably wouldn't be talking about how lucky I've been for it to work out for me, or asking for transparency from the surgeons when it comes to discussing side effects.
Ya think?

I apologise on beforehand if I am not able to reply again any time soon, I'm going away for 3 weeks and may or may not have access to the internet.

Thanks to all of you for your interest in my post.

Take care.

If Jin is your only hope then I truly feel even more sorry for you people, this person knows about stem cells? Really? Because he can barely cobble together an intelligible response, maybe the standards where he studies are so low they're willing to take anyone on…

So Jin, I am ignorant, really? I think you could have come up with much better insults, overweening, impertinent, perhaps even truculent, but of course those are all big words beyond the reach of a mere little ignorant girl of 22! Get off your fucking high horse, you're only 8 years my senior and the fact that you have to refer to my age to validate your point is quite laughable and speaks volumes about you. Yes my 'mommy and daddy' sent me to school, they also bought me clothes, fed me, and kept a roof over my head, isn't that what happens when you're a child? Looks like the one who needs sending back to school is you, to learn the basic of how advanced societies function, and some spelling and grammar lessons wouldn't go amiss either.

I'm going to have to repeat myself because apparently reading is a challenge beyond your limited abilities as well. Don't worry; I'll try to make it nice and simple for you. I came on this forum because I could not find the forum I had posted on in the past. This was the first forum I found, so this is the one I came on. I didn't realise there was a sign on the front that reads "NO HAPPY PEOPLE ALLOWED" my bad, I guess I'll have too look better for it.

Basically you've made 100 wrong assumptions about me and replied as if I'd written your assumptions (like my life is perfect, ETS works for everyone, I'm never going to have any side effects, etc.) so I'm replying based on the impression you've given me; that of a complete moron.

You are the weakest link. Goodbye!

Erika, I'm not here to brag. When I read my initial post I don't see myself taking on a bragging tone, or wanting to rub it in that things have worked out better for me than for you guys, quite the opposite. When I came on the this forum I didn't have as good of an impression about who was on it as I do now, and was merely attempting to show that there are people for whom this operation has worked, because I got the impression that a lot of people here don't believe that. There are some very mature, open minded people here who are capable of not jumping to silly conclusions and will hold an interesting, thought provoking conversation like csmess and rubberducky amongst others. Then there are others who make things up, don't bother to read what I have to say, and get their knickers in a twist over their own imaginations, JIN!!¡!¡

I can see here that some people really refuse to believe outright that anyone can be happy in any way because of this operation. I really don't understand that, its bordering on being delusional. You might not be happy with the results, but let's not deny the fact that other people are. It isn't changing the fact that there are issues with this operation and there are many people that suffer because of it. It doesn't have to be black or white. Personally I find it to be a very destructive attitude too. Anyone who comes in who isn't straight away saying ETS is something coughed up from the pits of hell itself, is greeted with antagonism, hostility and overall paranoid accusations. How is that helping you? You're closing yourself off from anyone except the tiny circle of people who agree with you? What's the point? I'm actually agreeing with you, ETS DOES cause problems, it CAN ruin people's lives. Just because my viewpoint does not coincide 100% with yours doesn't mean you have to act like its insanity.

Why not welcome an outsider? Have a constructive discussion about ETS? Make valid, well reasoned points that can make that person further understand your viewpoint, as others have done in this post? You know what annoys me the most? We're in the same boat! Don't forget that I also suffer from HH, I also suffer from CS, just not to the extent you guys do. It's frustrating that nobody knows about HH, and even less people about ETS, so if someone does come along who knows about these things, who suffers from HH too, why the need to get rid of them as soon as possible? Surely it could be seen as a potential ally for your cause? Because lets face it, nobody else but the sufferers seems to give a shit. So why not appreciate the little support you can get?

You know after reading what some of you have to say I really do take your points on board and mull them over in my head. Some of them make sense, so I bear them in mind, and this is the first step to making me change my mind about all this, which is always a possibility.

Randomly accusing me of being a 'recruiter' with no evidence whatsoever and then attempting to insult my intelligence when I am clearly not a stupid person is not going to achieve anything or further your point in any way.

And Chickpea, I'm sorry for not wording my point better. What I was trying to get across when saying I didn't live in the US was that you don't get advertisements for surgeries and such sort things are not heavily marketed. That's not to say that the doctors don't lie about it here too, but what I was trying to point out is that in a system where sick people = more money it's inevitable that some, if not most doctors will lie, putting money over the best interests of their patients. And that is why when I looked up ETS 5 years ago I didn't get tons of results of hospitals advertising it, just discussion boards and the no-ets site. It was just my reply to csmess' point that most people have difficulty finding anything other than raving reviews from hospital webpages.