I don’t shake hands, I sweat buckets everyday – Man’s battle with hyperhidrosis

Martin Mwangi [Photo: Courtesy]

Martin Mwangi will not hold his partner’s hand or have an easy time when getting finger printed. He has lived with hyperhidrosis all his life. He shares how it has affected him.

The excessive sweating used to occur in three focal areas; palms, feet and armpits, although the armpits happened later. The sweating did not happen after an activity; it would happen anytime, without any trigger.

When I was in school, hyperhidrosis caused me to deface many exercise books. I would sweat on my exercise books, and when they dried up, they would remain with what looked like bumps all over the pages.

The same thing used to happen during exams. When I was sitting exams, I would have extra handkerchiefs to place on the answer sheets so as not to spoil them. Teachers would cane me for messing things up, not knowing that it was not my fault.

Like all children with hyperhidrosis, I was bullied in school. And when I went home, my parents could not understand that the sweating was involuntary. They thought it was due to fear and would ask me to man up.

 Diagnosis by TV

I knew that this is a medical condition in 2007 when I returned home one evening, and found my younger sister watching The Tyra Banks Show.

There was a young lady on who was talking about a condition called hyperhidrosis, which a doctor on the show said was the medical name for excessive sweating. I sat on the edge of the sofa, and I was glued to the TV.  

After watching this show, I Googled like my doggone sweat glands depended on it.  

 No holding hands

There are people with hyperhidrosis who are depressed because they cannot choose certain career paths. There is also social stigma, for instance, you cannot do some romantic gestures like holding hands with your better half because of excessively-sweaty palms.

When I was applying for a national identity card and National Social Security Fund NSSF, the people taking my fingerprints thought I was sweating because of fear.

During last year’s elections, voting was a stressful experience for me. I thank God because the stream that the IEBC slotted me to use did not a have a long queue. When I placed a finger on the biometric machine, it would reach 90 per cent, then stop reading. I told the IEBC official to just take my ID card and do it manually. It had reached a point where I just gave up.

Throughout my life, I thought that I was the only person with this condition. After I formed a support group, Hyperhidrosis Awareness, and did two interviews on a local television station, other people with hyperhidrosis started coming out. I have met other people who are having it worse. Strangely, most of the people who reached out to me said that they always thought they were alone.

I turn 31 on May 26 and I will mark this milestone by cycling, with other partners, from Nairobi to Kisumu to raise awareness about hyperhidrosis. I will also hold a two-day conference in Kisumu