What is Anhidrosis?

After asking about her symptoms, Jennifer's doctor noted that despite outside temperatures near 100 degrees, the young woman was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She joked that she must be special because she hadn't been sweating at all. Her abnormal lack of sweat - known as anhidrosis - was just one clue the doctor used to discover she was suffering from Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Overview of Anhidrosis

It's the medical term for absent sweating. According to MedlinePlus, this condition can be harmful since the process of sweating allows heat to escape from the body. The disorder is also called hypohidrosis. Doctors generally find it difficult to diagnose.

Anhidrosis is sometimes overlooked until an individual has been exposited to quite a bit of heat or exertion without sweating. The disorder can be life-threatening due to overheating of the body. However, if it occurs in only a small area, it's usually less dangerous.

Causes

A number of situations and illnesses can be responsible when an individual's sweat glands stop working, the Mayo Clinic indicates. Many illnesses cause nerve damage that interferes with the regulation of involuntary actions such as blood pressure and body temperature.

Damage to the skin from causes like severe burns can cause anhidrosis. Certain medications such as drugs used for bladder control and nausea sometimes reduce sweating.

Some children suffer from genetic disorders that result in the malfunctioning of their sweat glands, while others have a condition that causes them be born with few if any of these glands. Specific events that cause the body to dehydrate are responsible since dehydration can also interfere with the ability to sweat.

Certain individuals are at elevated risk for developing this disorder. Among them are the elderly, since aging can diminish a person's ability to sweat. Certain medical conditions like diabetes increase the risk. Skin disorders like heat rash and scleroderma also up the chances for anhidrosis. In some patients, genetic abnormalities are the culprits.

Signs and Symptoms

There are many signs of anhidrosis. Typical symptoms include experiencing little or no perspiration, flushing, feeling hot, becoming dizzy and developing muscle cramps or weakness. A lack of perspiration might develop over most of the individual's body, in scattered patches or in just one area.

Sometimes an unaffected area attempts to compensate for a malfunctioning one by going into overdrive to produce perspiration. Patients who experience this phenomenon sweat profusely on one part of the body and little if any on another.

When anhidrosis affects a large part of the body so that it can't cool properly, it's possible to experience heat cramps, heat exhaustion or heatstroke during exercise, hard physical labor and hot weather.

It's important to consult a doctor if a person hardly sweats or doesn't sweat at all during these conditions. Experiencing weakness, nausea, dizziness, a rapid heartbeat or goose pimples during heat warrants emergency medical attention.

Treatment

Fortunately, if anhidrosis affects only a small part of the body, treatment might not be necessary. Anyone overheated, however, needs prompt treatment to prevent worsening symptoms.

On an emergency basis, doctors typically treat heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Left untreated, heatstroke can be fatal.

While it's often impossible to prevent this sweating disorder, affected individuals can avoid serious heat-related illnesses connected to it. In cases where a disease causes the condition, doctors attempt to treat the underlying illness. When a medication is the source of the problem, if a patient is able to stop taking it, his or her anhidrosis usually disappears.

Sources:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003219.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/anhidrosis/DS01050