Wait and See, But Good So Far - Leesburg, VA

I discovered the MiraDry procedure purely by accident on the internet when I was looking for options in treating my excessive underarm sweating. Like alot of folks suffering from Hyperhidrosis, anti-perspirants just didn't work. I wore dark or black clothing to work, particularly on days when I had to run or participate in a meeting. I would wear a t-shirt under the dark clothing and shove tissue under my armpits to try and absorb the perspiration as best as possible. Sometimes I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom to exchange the tissues that had gotten extremely soaked. I started seriously looking for options when I moved to a new position where I would constantly be collaborating with people on a more ongoing basis -- I just didn't want to have to keep worrying about sweat stains appearing while having these meetings.

I was really lucky because not only did I discover the MiraDry procedure, but I also found a clinic offering the procedure less than 10 miles from where I lived. I timed and scheduled the procedure while the weather was still cold so that the recovery period wouldn't impact activities that I normally do when the weather gets warmer.

The clinic I went to had a good amount of experience performing the procedure so I felt comfortable going into it. I won't go into detail about the procedure itself since alot of previous reviewers did a great job in describing it, but I'll talk about how I felt. The nurse who performed the injections to numb my armpits did a good job in explaining it and where I would probably feel the most discomfort. I won't lie, it definitely stung in the places she mentioned it would and went alot easier on subsequent injections. Given what I had researched prior to the procedure, I asked the nurse what setting my first MiraDry treatment would be and she said 3, which was great because I would've recommended that anyways.

During the treatment itself, I experienced no pain whatsoever, although a couple times the suction would be lost and had to be readjusted. My whole procedure, including the numbing injections, lasted about 1.5 hours. I did experience numbness on the fingers of my right arm after the procedure and that was primarily because I had that arm over my head for quite awhile (the treatment was performed on that arm first). It took 2-3 hours before all the feeling came back to those fingers.

After the treatment, I was given post-procedure instructions on paper and ice packs to immediately apply underneath my armpits. I had read one recommendation about freezing water bottles to use under my armpits after the procedure so I had gone ahead and did that in advance. What I found difficult though about the water bottles was that they were difficult to keep under your armpits if you're sitting upright, particularly if you have to use the computer like I do. So I sent back to using the ice packs because they were alot easier to squeeze against my body and type. See attached pics from Day 1.

When the numbing from the injections wore off, I felt pain for about a day and a half, even with taking ibuprofin and using the ice packs. The pain was bearable though. Like most people, I started getting the golf ball affect feeling under my armpits (actually, mine felt like baseballs) the next day, and my armpit area was swollen and looked pillowy. There was still numbness in certain parts of my underarm and the areas that weren't numb were sensitive to the touch. I continued to take ibuprofin and applied the ice packs on a consistent basis (except at night when I feel asleep with them) for the next 2.5 days.

Now here's what I didn't know and didn't see any previous MiraDry reviewers write about (it's possible that some of the earlier reviews mentioned this, as I only read the last 20 or so and it wasn't mentioned). On the 3rd day after the treatment, I decide to do some light cardio strength work-out where I wouldn't use my shoulders except to hold light weights for doing lower body exercises like squats. I also did some ab exercises. Several hours later, I noticed that my waist looked like it just got abnormally wider. I didn't think too much about it until my wife looked at me and said I was looking like the Pillsbury dough boy. So I tried looking at the previous reviews again to see if anyone experienced this. On the post-procedure paper I was given, it did mention minor side affects like possible torso swelling. I finally did locate two people who wrote questions about experiencing something similar and the doctors that responded mentioned not having any patients experiencing this, so they appeared to cast doubt that the torso/waist swelling was related to the MiraDry treatment. The good news is that eventually both of these people mentioned that their bodies returned to normal after 8 - 9 days, and one of them mentioned to me that working out seemed to exacerbate the body change so it was better to remain inactive until the torso returned to normal. It was weird that these doctors didn't have any patients that experienced this, but it could be because most people aren't working out a couple of days after the procedure. I did speak to the nurse about this during my post-procedure visit 5 days later and she mentioned that the swelling had extended down from my armpits to my waist/torso area. At least she has seen this before. Just like the other two people, my torso/waist swelling reduced considerably by Day 7, and practically to normal by Day 10. See attached pics of underarms and torso from Days 3, 5, and 7.

Currently, my armpits are still swollen, pillowy and sore, but not as bad. And I still have that golf-ball feeling. I'm not too worried about this as I read that it took some people to be totally clear of this within 3 - 4 weeks. The great news is that it has been 10 days so far and I have yet to experience underarm sweat. I'm a realist in that I believe that at some point I will probably get some sweating to return, but I'm hoping that it's drastically smaller than what I had prior to my first Mirady treatment. But right now it feels great to go to work and not even worry about sweating at all!