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Sweaty feet: what to do?
Last reviewed: 05.07.2025

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When feet sweat, a person finds himself in the position of a black sheep. He cannot live normally, go to work, make love, or make a career. At any moment, he can be let down by excessive sweating of the feet, or hyperhidrosis, as doctors call this disease. What to do when feet sweat and how to get rid of excessive sweating of the feet?
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Sweaty feet equal fungus
Ideally, feet should not sweat much. This happens when serious disorders occur in the body. Strong overexcitation of the central nervous system, kidney disease, endocrine diseases, hormonal imbalances or an inflammatory process in the body - all this can lead to increased sweating of the feet.
And the most unpleasant thing is that a fungus settles on the feet, which increases the unpleasant odor and prevents a person from wearing normal shoes, the feet and the area between the toes itch, hurt, and the skin becomes covered with cracks.
How to identify fungus?
A stale smell of feet, despite all the tricks of the owner or housewife: constant washing, deodorants, changing socks and tights - can temporarily hide the manifestations of fungus, which is also characterized by a putrid foul odor. And yet, you should be wary if:
- Bad foot odor gets worse despite washing and comfortable shoes
- The skin around the toes and nails becomes red and inflamed
- Cracks and red spots appear between the toes
- The skin between the toes and on the feet is peeling, itchy, and painful
This means that hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) has been joined by its constant ally – fungus. You need to immediately contact a dermatologist and begin treatment before the fungus develops and turns into eczema, which will be much more difficult to get rid of.
What remedies will help to cope with fungus and sweating?
Foot baths with a drying effect are very good. The doctor can prescribe you medications that will cause a drying effect. And we can give an example of using formalin or manganese diluted in water. How to do this? First, rinse your feet under running water, but not cold, but cool. This is both a hardening and a good soothing agent for tired foot skin. Wash your feet with soap or foam - it is more gentle than soap on the delicate skin of the feet.
How to make a foot bath?
A foot bath is a great drying remedy for sweating and fungus. Spend 15 minutes on it, and soon your feet will be fine. So, you need to dilute manganese in water so that the water turns pink. You can't throw in a lot of manganese - a couple of grains is enough, otherwise you can burn the skin of your feet. Put your feet in there, hold them for a quarter of an hour, wipe dry.
After this procedure, sprinkle your feet with powder. You don't have to buy expensive ones - baby powder will do the job of drying your feet. And then, if it's a man, you can put on cotton or linen socks (they should be natural, absorbing moisture) and comfortable leather shoes.
For women, it is advisable to use tights made of natural materials (in the cold season) or not use anything if the season is hot.
Instead of powder, you can use foot cream for sweaty feet - these creams are sold in pharmacies.
If you are making a formalin solution for the bath, take 1 teaspoon of formalin per 2 liters of water. This will be a good drying and antimicrobial agent.
Teimurov's Paste
After the bath, it is also good to use Teymurov paste for excessive sweating of the feet. This is not a very expensive and effective remedy that will help in the fight against bacteria and excessive sweating of the feet - it was developed specifically for this. It cannot be used only for acute inflammation of the skin of the foot, but for normal sweating - please!
This product also has a deodorant effect, so you don’t have to worry about bad foot odor.
Deodorants with antiperspirants
These products can be used for hyperhidrosis, but only if there is no fungus on the feet. If the fungus has already appeared, it must first be cured. Antiperspirants will help cope with excessive sweating, dry the skin of the feet and disinfect it.
But, since antiperspirants have the property of narrowing the skin pores (this is why a person does not sweat so much), they should not be used constantly. Use these products during the day, but not at night - the skin needs to rest, and the pores - to work.
At night before going to bed, just wash your feet with soap, dry them and use a drying powder. And you can use antiperspirant in the morning when you go to work. It will protect you from the bad opinion of others for the whole day.
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Foot cream for sweating
There are specially developed foot creams that slow down the sweat formation process. These creams dry feet well, they contain bactericidal substances that fight bacteria. As a rule, such creams also contain talc, which absorbs moisture, relieving a person of increased foot moisture.
Creams with natural medicinal herbs are very good, for example, with oak bark extract and lemongrass - they do not cause side effects when applied to the skin of the feet and help to cope with excessive sweating.
Foot spray for hyperhidrosis
The spray is a very convenient remedy for sweaty feet. It contains essential oils that prevent bad odor from spreading and protect against bacteria. The spray is very convenient to carry in your pocket, you don’t need to dirty your hands when you treat your feet with the spray, as happens with creams. Press the button a few times – and that’s it, your feet are treated.
How to care for shoes?
The health of your feet depends very, very much on how you do it. Even clean, washed and treated with antiperspirants, your feet will not stay clean for more than five minutes if your shoes leave much to be desired.
The foot creams and sprays we wrote about above are also a means for shoes. They need to be treated with means that eliminate bad odor - after thoroughly removing dirt from the sole, of course. One of the good means for removing bad odor from shoes is treatment with a special spray.
Properties of the best shoe polish
The best of them are not those with a deodorant effect (they simply cover up the unpleasant smell with their own). The best sprays are those that absorb bad smells by adsorbing them. A good shoe treatment product should not leave marks on them, should not have its own smell, should not spoil the shoes (their structure, color). Modern shoe sprays remove odors from shoes and boots at the molecular level, so they can cope with even the strongest of them.
All these characteristics can be read on the label. It must be indicated that the spray does not cause allergic reactions, is not toxic - otherwise it is simply not worth buying.
Cotton swabs for shoes
This is a homemade but effective remedy for removing unpleasant shoe odor. You need to soak a cotton swab in formalin (a 25% solution is enough), put it in the shoe, and put the shoe in a plastic bag, close it and leave it somewhere in a dark place for 3 days away from children and animals. Formalin will remove all bacteria from the surface of the insoles, disinfecting them.
But here's the problem: formalin leaves an unpleasant smell. It can be removed with ammonia. You need to wet cotton wool with it and leave it in your shoes for 2-3 hours. That's it! Your shoes are disinfected and pristine clean.
If the shoes are made of expensive leather, you don't need to put the formalin in them, but put it next to the shoes. But still, wrap both the shoes and the product itself - formalin - in cellophane, so as not to scare the family.
If there is no formalin, you can use vinegar. But not vinegar itself, but its acid with a concentration of 35%. The method of disinfecting shoes is the same as for formalin.
Bags of herbs
A great daily remedy to keep your shoes smelling nice. It's good to put pine needles, cedar shavings or chopped cones, juniper in the bags. All of these are great bactericidal agents to reduce foot sweating.
In addition to natural materials, you can use small packages filled with zeolite. This material absorbs and absorbs unpleasant odors very well, which makes life much easier for a person. You don’t have to buy new bags every time, but reuse them. Just be sure to dry them in the sun after using them during the day.
Moisture-absorbing insoles
Such insoles are sold in pharmacies or made to order. This is a great help for those people who suffer from excessive sweating of the feet. And for those who are forced to constantly wear closed shoes: bank employees, military personnel, builders, athletes.
These insoles are good because they can effectively absorb moisture and adsorb sweat secretions. Insoles designed to absorb moisture perform not only this noble role. Such insoles also help eliminate bad odors, so your feet are always comfortable in them - even when they sweat a lot.
How should sweaty feet be treated?
First of all, you can use folk remedies that contain tannins. They may even be more effective than medical drugs. And the fact that they are cheaper is clear as day.
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Recipe with oak bark
You need to take 100 oak bark and pour one liter of water over it. Boil it on low heat for half an hour, cool it and steam your feet for 7 days in a row. Sweating will decrease significantly.
[ 8 ]
Recipe with salt and soda
Both of these products are bactericidal, salt is even used to disinfect wounds (though it is very painful). You need to take 1 teaspoon of salt and soda, mix them in a glass of well-heated water and wash your feet with this solution. Then rinse your feet and wipe them dry. Your feet will sweat much less, and the unpleasant smell will be reduced.
Recipe with sage
This plant has amazing bactericidal and anti-inflammatory properties - sage is used to gargle for colds and even sore throats. You need to take one teaspoon of sage leaves and pour two glasses of boiling water over it.
Let this infusion stand for at least 40 minutes, cool down. Then strain the sage, but do not wash your feet with it, but take it internally. This will help to improve many processes in the body, including inflammatory ones. You need to take sage infusion 2 tablespoons twice a day for two to three weeks.
Proper nutrition
To prevent your feet from sweating so much, you need to remove from your menu some products that provoke increased sweating of the feet and other parts of the body, armpits, for example. Their list includes the tonic substances theobromine and caffeine, which are contained in cocoa, chocolate, coffee, tea.
Literally in a week or two of a reasonable diet, your feet will not sweat so much. But it is important to remember that you cannot get rid of foot sweating with just one diet. Complex treatment methods are needed.
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Physiotherapy
Electrophoresis can be used as a physiotherapy. A session once every 7 days is enough – and sweaty feet will become much less annoying. To achieve a good effect, it is advisable to conduct 10 sessions of electrophoresis.
The session should be conducted by an experienced doctor, because the time norm is strictly individual for each patient. If electrophoresis is overexposed, a person may experience pain, itching and burning of the feet. The skin will become irritated, and then it will take a long time to treat. Therefore, physiotherapy should be approached wisely.
Sympathectomy
This is a surgical method of treating excessive sweating of the feet if other methods do not help. The operation involves the following actions of the surgeon. There are special nerve bundles in the body that are responsible for the amount of sweat secreted. If this nerve bundle is pinched or cut off, sweat stops being secreted in such huge quantities. So it is pinched with a special device - a clip.
The good thing about the operation is that it helps a lot of patients – up to 80%, and the effect of the operation is very long-lasting – up to three to four years.
The downside of this surgical intervention is that it can cause various complications in the form of heart failure, drooping eyelids, and a reverse reaction - increased sweating when a person eats. Therefore, before deciding on such an operation, it is worth analyzing all alternative treatment methods and only then making a decision.
Botulinum toxin
Botox injections, as the substance botulinum toxin is also called, are designed to block the transmission of pain impulses. This method is also used to treat excessive sweating, i.e. hyperhidrosis. Treatment with botulinum toxin can have a long-lasting effect - almost up to a year.
True, treatment with this drug is quite expensive – a course costs about two thousand dollars.
Whatever treatment method you choose, when your feet sweat, it is worth remembering about personal hygiene and that self-medication can be detrimental to your feet. Therefore, it is imperative to consult a doctor so that he can help you properly and competently cope with such a condition as sweaty feet.