Body odor is medically called. Underarm odor? It is a special unpleasant smell produced by the secretion of apocrine glands distributed in the skin such as armpit, perineum and back. Because this smell is similar to the smell discharged from the anus of a fox, it is also called body odor. ?
Why does it produce body odor?
How is body odor produced? It starts with sweat glands all over the human body. There are about 3.3 million sweat glands in human body, of which eccrine glands account for about 90% and apocrine glands account for about 10%. Eccrine glands are all over the body, and the secretion is rare and thin. The main ingredients are water and electrolyte, which usually have no taste.
Apocrine glands are concentrated in axilla, crotch, areola and external auditory canal. The apocrine gland itself has no odor, but a large amount of sweat discharged from it contains protein, which will be decomposed into many unsaturated fatty acids after contact with bacteria on the skin surface, thus producing odor.
In short, body odor is produced by the interaction between bacteria and sweat gland secretions.
How to distinguish body odor VS sweat odor?
Although speaking of body odor, everyone stays away from it, but many times it is sweat or body odor, which still makes many people confused.
Chief physician Wu Huiling, director of the Plastic Surgery Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said that under normal circumstances, the smell of sweat usually disappears naturally after it is cleaned, as long as it stops sweating; But if it's body odor, even if you sweat slightly after washing, the smell will reappear, which is difficult to dissipate and will be noticed by people around you. At the same time, the clothes it wears will be attached with obvious smell, which is difficult to remove. If it is really impossible to self-identify, it is recommended to go to a professional hospital for further diagnosis.
Basically, from January to February and March every year, near beginning of spring, such patients begin to increase gradually and will continue until summer and autumn. Usually concentrated in two kinds of people, one is middle-aged and elderly people with very mature sweat glands, and the other is young people who are mainly junior high school students. The sweat glands of these people grow with the development process, making the smell that was not obvious when they were young gradually obvious.
How should body odor be treated
How should body odor be treated? Wu Huiling said that at present, mainly through surgical and non-surgical methods, after treatment, it can reach a level that people around can't detect.
Surgical treatment is one of the effective methods to remove body odor. The traditional surgical method is to remove the axillary apocrine gland together with the surrounding tissue and skin, although it has been realized? Take drastic measures? However, the postoperative wound is large, the whole armpit is wrinkled with scars, and the shoulder extension may be limited, which has been rarely used.
At present, the most widely used method is small incision sweat gland resection or curettage, which is a minimally invasive outpatient operation. Patients need 16 years old or older. During the operation, a short incision is made along the armpit fold to cut off or scrape off the subcutaneous sweat glands, so as to achieve the purpose of no smelly sweat under the armpit.
Because it will affect daily life to avoid large-scale movement of shoulder joint in a short time after minimally invasive surgery, the following non-surgical methods are gradually becoming popular? Botulinum toxin injection therapy. The main function of botulinum toxin is to inhibit muscle contraction. Subaxillary injection of botulinum toxin can inhibit the secretory function of apocrine glands, which generally lasts for about 6 months. Botulinum injection therapy is still favored by many people because of its advantages of no trace, simple operation and no influence on life and work, although its economic cost is high.
The purpose of body odor treatment is to make people around you unaware of it and not affect normal interpersonal communication. Therefore, as long as patients choose the correct treatment method, they can achieve their goals without excessive psychological burden. Of course, if you want treatment, you must go to a regular professional medical institution for treatment. Among the patients she treated, a few people trusted some private clinics, which not only did not remove the odor, but caused axillary scars.