Saving time during the hand and foot treatment
Therapy against hyperhidrosis
(Excessive sweating)
Due to their high efficiency, all our iontophoresis devices by Hidrex and Dr. Hönle offer the possibility to treat hands and feet simultaneously.
How does it work?
Iontophoresis is a so-called "two-cell bath", which means 2 poles in the form of 2 electrodes inside 2 tubs filled with tap water.
One tub is placed on the floor, another on the table. Each tub contains one electrode covered by a grid.
Next, the user simply places both feet into the tub on the floor, and both hands into the tub on the table.
However, fitting both feet into one tub can feel quite uncomfortable to many users and result in an unnatural, strained sitting position.
For a more comfortable treatment, one pole can be connected to 2 tubs that are placed in a row.
Our Set Duo from the EASION series offers special bridge cables for this exact purpose. They allow you to connect two electrodes to one pole and set up the tubs at a comfortable distance to each other.
Now you can treat your hands and feet at the same time.
Tip: Place a towel under the tubs and remember always to keep at least one hand or one foot in the tub to maintain the circuit. If you remove both hands from the water bath, the circuit will be broken. The same applies to the feet.
Advantages: the possibility of saving time (limitations below).
Disadvantages: The current strength must be chosen accurately before the treatment. If it is too strong or too weak, you will have to readjust it several times. But with time, you will be able to estimate the necessary current strength in advanced by instinct.
Does it make sense to treat hands and feet simultaneously with iontophoresis? Not always!
For some users, the simultaneous iontophoresis treatment is advisable, for others, it only increases effort and costs.
Important: At the beginning of the therapy, it makes sense to treat hands and feet separately in order to find the best settings.
The simultaneous treatment of hands and feet (all four extremities at the same time) makes sense if the iontophoresis device is technically capable of delivering sufficient and equally distributed currents.
If the hands or feet already require the maximum current strength the device can offer, a simultaneous treatment is not advisable, since the current is distributed over a larger area of skin. This means that you could lose success due to not meeting your personal threshold.
In terms of time factor, the simultaneous treatment can help save time. In the best case, a user suffering from hyperhidrosis on hands and feet might save up to 50% of treatment time with a simultaneous iontophoresis treatment.
This time reduction sounds particularly attractive to users who spend a lot of time conducting iontophoresis sessions.
It should be noted that a high time reduction is more likely in "sensitive" cases.
In such a case, the hands and feet are equally affected in terms of sweating, the thickness of the skin on hands and feet are proportional to the treatment area and the effect of the distribution of the + and - pole, and the hands and feet need exactly the same time and current intensity. Of course, the iontophoresis device must be able to deliver this current intensity.
Although this may sound somewhat utopian, it is still possible to save a large amount of time despite our gloomy warnings. The goal of optimizing the iontophoresis therapy remains to invest as little time as possible.
Tolerable iontophoresis current strengths
If the current is too strong when treating hands and feet separately (rule of thumb: the current for hands and feet does not differ by more than 30%) or if you treat your hands and feet around the maximum possible current strength of the device, it is usually better to stick with the separate treatment sessions.
If you already own a comfort set for the hands, the additional costs for the simultaneous treatment are manageable. With an intelligent combination of spare parts, you will only need 2 electrodes and the Set Duo connecting cables.
Let's take a detailed look at all known premises:
The iontophoresis device must be able to provide a sufficient current. In most cases, one can draw a distinction between professional devices and toy devices. A sensible, high current density that is sufficient for hands and feet is rarely feasible. Hidrex and Idromed devices are specialised on such a treatment, stopping at the legally applicable current limits.
If a user treats their feet at the highest possible current limit, adding the hands will take away about 50% of the current density per square centimeter. The missing current would have to be compensated for through a longer treatment time. If the user falls below their personal treatment threshold for the feet, the sweating would start again.
Treating hands and feet simultaneously with iontophoresis: finding the right balance
Hands and feet need approximately the same treatment time. Experience shows that this is often the case. Should they require different treatment times, the time one can save via a simultaneous treatment would be equal to the smaller value.
Example: A user treats their feet for 15 minutes and their hands for 30 minutes. Thus, they require a treatment time of 45 minutes. This user can save 15 minutes by treating hands and feet simultaneously for 15 minutes and then conducting a second 15-minute session for the hands.
Skin thickness, current strengths, and distribution of the iontophoresis effect
Iontophoresis and skin thickness
The thickness of the skin in all treatment areas has a great influence on the level of current the user is able to withstand. Thicker skin tends to require higher currents to get dry in the first place. Since the skin layers on hands and feet can vary greatly (think: walking barefoot, thick layers of callus, "lumberjack hands"), it may be necessary to intervene and remove the callus manually.
Current and distribution of the effect during iontophoresis therapy
Special attention should be paid to the distribution of the iontophoresis effect. The positive pole has a slightly stronger effect, therefore it is possible to swap the poles appropriately. Usually, the plus pole is placed at the feet.
Example: A user can withstand a maximum of 5 mA at the hands and 15 mA at the feet. For this user, it would make little sense do a simultaneous treatment, since the two required current strengths are more than 50% apart. The user would have to treat their feet at a maximum of 7 mA when placing the positive pole at the feet.
Exception: The user treats different parts of the feet at different current strengths, e.g. the ankles or the instep at a lower current strength than the soles. In this case, a simultaneous treatment of the hands and these sensitive parts of the feet would make sense.
Various factors determine whether a simultaneous treatment appears to be useful:
- The device has not reached its current limit, supplies sufficient current strengths and does not "drop" during the power peak
- Different current levels needed for hands and feet are not more than 30% apart
- The saved treatment time is up to 75%
Conclusion: If you follow these tips on the simultaneous iontophoresis treatment, you can save up to 50% of treatment time, as long as you are within a reasonable time/current window. Sound good?
Despite all theoretical back and forth, this method can only be tested through individual trial and error. The optimal iontophoresis therapy setting can be achieved.