Are you one of the millions of people all over the world who are affected by excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis? It can literally rule your life, affecting the places you go, the things you do, and also what clothes you wear.

And no matter what job you do for a living, the problem can seem even worse when you are at work. Worrying about your excessive sweating can make you feel, stressed, uncomfortable and even embarrassed, if you think your colleagues and workmates have noticed your sweating.

If you work in an office, you probably have to wear a shirt and tie, a shirt thats thin and shows sweat stains easily. If you work in the warehouse, you probably have any number of manual duties that cause you to get over-heated and sweat more.

And if you do start to sweat, you start to get stressed, and that makes the sweating even worse!

You can spend most of your time worrying about your sweating, which takes your mind off what you should be thinking about. And you probably feel really uncomfortable being around your colleagues in case they notice. Each day you are at work you could be spending most of your time worrying about your problem.

Do any of these sound like the kind of thing you’ve tried just to get through work?

- wearing extra layers under your shirt or overalls

- drying your sweat patches with the toilet hand-dryer

- keeping your suit jacket on in the office even when its 90 degrees

- changing your shirt or blouse during the day

- re-applying your deoderant during the day

But these just mask the issue and dont stop you worrying about it, so whilst your colleagues might not notice your excessive sweating, how much time are you spending hiding it from them that you could be spending being more effective at your job?

In short, worrying about your hyperhidrosis can take over your whole day, but you’ve probably never really realised to what extent.

Around 62% of adults said that going to an interview, confronting the boss, and other job-related issues made them sweat more, according to a survey by the International Hyperhidrosis Society.

The IHHS also found that people who were affected by hyperhidrosis in the workplace were limited to carrying out physical duties 25% of the time, in mental and interpersonal tasks 20% of the time, in time management 17% of the time, and in work output 11% of the time.

So not only is hyperhidrosis affecting how you feel at work, its also effecting how you perform at work and the chances are you probably hadnt even noticed.

The IHHS have also commented that whilst hyperhisrosis is not recognised as a significant problem in the workplace, it can have limitations on performance similar to those experienced by workers with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and depression.

You could always turn the air-conditioning up or try and avoid any manual labour, or try any number of methods to cover up the problem. But wouldn’t it be great to go to work confident in the knowledge that you didn’t have a problem, because it had been cured, naturally and permanently?

Hyperhidrosis doesn’t have a particularly high profile and the IHHS is working to change this. If you are affected, there are options open to you, you can find out more about one of these below.