20-Something Female - Three Mirady Treatments...

I'm providing this review because the feedback from others here on RealSelf was instrumental in helping me make my decision to go ahead with the MiraDry procedure. I would now like to share my experience, which was positive, and encourage others to do it.

I noticed my sweating problem when I was about 12-13 years old and it's been an issue my whole life. I could only wear black, to cover up the sweat patches. As someone who loves fashion and bright colors, wearing only black was difficult and sad for me. In a stressful situation (like a public speaking event, which I do a lot), I could literally be DRIPPING and have huge, cold, wet sweat patches. So gross.

My mom is a nurse, so growing up she really wanted to help "solve" this medical condition. She bought every single kind of prescription deodorant out there, but to no avail. I considered Botox but just didn't have the budget for on-going injections and then I heard of Miradry about a year ago. At first I was skeptical, but after reading over the reviews here on this site, looking at photos, and seeing that it had an over 90% positive rating, I decided I didn't have anything to lose.

I booked an appointment at Clinique Peau in Montreal with Dr. Khanna in June of 2014. I live in Ottawa, but the closest MiraDry center is Montreal, which is a 2-hour drive away, so I booked there. We're now December 2014 so it's been 6 months since my first treatment and I am SO HAPPY! It's been life-changing. I'm going back in a week (January 2015) for my second treatment, when I plan to take photos and document the process more thoroughly, in hopes that it helps others.

My treatment in June 2014 went amazingly well. I was really nervous and scared before the appointment mostly about the 20+ shots in each armpit for the freezing (and also because I am generally a nervous nelly) but it turned out to really be not as big a deal as I was making it out to be in my mind. First they put some powder on your arm pit and identify where your sweat patches are. Then they put a grid pattern that marks where the needles with the freezing agent will go in your armpits. You get about 20+ needles in each arm pit. The first few shots stung a tiny bit, but then the rest I couldn't feel, and the doctor moves quickly since he knows it's the worst part. The Doctor's assistant was super nice and friendly, and chatty to help distract me from the procedure. Dr. Khanna was professional and got the shots done quickly. The MiraDry procedure itself is done by the assistant using a suction-y device (which uses microwaves to "melt" the sweat glands) that is held against the various spots on the armpit for a few moments each. That lasted only a few minutes and I didn't feel a single thing. It went really quickly. I believe she used it on setting 2 and 4, 2 for the outside and 4 for the inside where I Sweat a lot. When it was done, I left with the frozen water bottles I had brought with me under my pits and took the ice packs they offered me. I drove myself home, and I had taken the whole day off work and was glad I did, as that night I was exhausted and felt like crap. My armpits immediately became huge and swollen with big bulges. It was tender and the best way to describe the feeling is like the inside of my arm pit had been microwaved. (Which, basically, they had). A strange, oddly stinging and burning sensation. Nothing TERRIBLE though, and popping a few painkillers helped. The major swelling went down after 4-5 days, and a week after I had this done, I went to a bachelorette pool party and wore a bathing suit and had no fear that anyone would notice anything odd (obviously, I did't hold my arms way up in the air for an extended period of time as they still looked a BIT funky if you looked real closely). I'd say it took between 3-4 weeks to completely heal 100% and for my armpits to return to completely normal. I do still grow hair but oddly there are a few bald spots on my arm pits now (not that I mind.) The sweating has gone down about 85%. I did attend two conferences where I spoke publicly since then which is the REAL test for me and I DID sweat through my shirts a bit so I do still have to wear black to conferences, but it's a HUGE impovement over before the miraDry treatment, and Im hoping after treatment #2 I won't sweat at all anymore, even at public speaking events.

I originally booked my second treatment for October (about 4 months after the first one) but I've been travelling and busy so rebooked it to January 2015 which is next month. I'm hoping that with the second treatment it will stop the sweating 100%. But honestly, it's been reduced so much that now I can wear whatever I want. It's so liberating!!!

Today (Jan 9 2015) I had the second treatment finally. They recommend you do the second treatment about 3 months after the first one but I had to wait 6 months in my case due to work conflicts and the fact that the miraDry clinic is 2 hours from my house (not exactly easy to get to).

I was a lot more relaxed about going to this treatment since I knew what to expect and I knew that it's not so bad. The worst part is the needles to numb the area.... I REALLY hate that part... but it only takes a few minutes, and the doctor moves quickly and tries to talk and be friendly to keep you distracted... (didn't work but thanks for trying doc!)

Also, I don't know think I mentioned but the Dr. actually only does the injection of the freezing agent into the armpits, he doesn't do the miraDry treatment himself. As soon as the freezing is done, he leaves the room, and his trained assistant is the one who does the entire miraDry procedure, which takes about 40 minutes. (15-20 mins per armpit)

When the procedure started this time with the suction-y miraDry machine I felt an acute/intense burning/tingling sensation shooting up my arm that was quite painful. I was shocked by it because in the first treatment I felt abolustely ZERO!! Nothing at all! So when it started to burn and be painful, I alerted Veronique (the assistant who does the treatment) about it right away. She thought it might be because they used less freezing agent this time than they did in the first treatment so she went and got Dr. Khanna and he gave me a few more shots of licodaine in each pit. After that, she went back to work with the device, and I didnt feel any more pain after that.

The numbing agent just wore off a few hours ago and now there is the stinging/burning pain in each pit so I've been popping some extra strength Tylenol and have a frozen water bottle under each pit. Apparently, icing the area helps A LOT to have a quick recovery time so I'm going to take that seriously and keep it iced as much as I can. I know today and tomorrow will be the worst of it, and to be honest... a few days of pain is totally worth the gain of having a sweat-free life and being able to wear whatever I want!! It's honestly been life-changing... I'm so happy I did it.

I'll report back soon with how the healing process is going.

Today is the second day of my second treatment. I kept frozen water bottles under my armpits all afternoon yesterday as the freezing wore off. It was a pretty painful, burning sensation but luckily the pain killers helped a lot and today (day 2) the pain is already lessened a lot. I've been a "bad girl" and havent kept the frozen water bottles under my armpits overnight like the tech suggested (it was just too cold and uncomfortable to fall asleep like that) and I actually haven't iced it that much today, but I am icing it right now (10PM) as I watch tv. Still popping Tylenol with codeine when I feel pain. I've just been going about doing my regular tasks, errands, shopping, etc. Everything going good so far