Topics: Health, Mental Health, Scotland, UK News, NHS
A woman with a rare condition that sees her sweat three liters a day has shared the realities of living with it.
Darcie Hamilton noticed she was sweating more than her peers at 10 years old during primary school.
But as she grew older, Darcie's issue worsened, forcing her to take desperate measures to hide her problem from classmates.
This included bringing three changes of clothes to school as well as taking up to five showers every day.
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Despite her efforts to conceal her health condition, Darcie, from Scotland, UK, was 'severely' bullied over her sweating and ended up leaving school at 14 due to the cruel comments.
Two years later she was diagnosed with 'one of the worst cases' of hyperhidrosis that doctor's had ever seen.
Per Cleveland Clinic, this condition 'causes your body to sweat more than it needs to, sometimes for no apparent reason' and is also known as excessive sweating.
Speaking about her time at school and how her condition weighed on her, Darcie said: "School was absolutely horrendous for me. The condition was one of the things that I got severely bullied for.
"I had to leave school at 14 because that's how bad the bullying was from it. They would say I was dirty. It's something that definitely did affect me.
"The sweat would literally be from the top of my armpit all the way down to the bottom of my waist.
"The older I got, the more visible it became. I would start chafing. It would cause rashes, blisters, really bad sores," Darcie continued.
"It overtook my life, I was in my bed all day every day. I didn't want to leave the house or make friends. I was embarrassed."
At one stage of her life Darcie believes she was sweating three liters of sweat a day and she had to drink five liters of water daily to stop herself from becoming dehydrated.
Away from the constant sweating, Darcie says said the condition left her with hundreds of blisters on her hands and sores in her armpits.
She shared: "The hyperhidrosis caused contact dermatitis because of the constant sweating.
"The sores in my armpits and hands were excruciating. I would get hundreds of tiny blisters on both hands."
Darcie was initially offered Botox injections under the NHS to help reduce her symptoms, but this was later withdrawn, forcing her to pay privately for the treatment in order to keep on top of it.
Now, Darcie wants to raise awareness of hyperhidrosis in a bid for the condition to be taken more seriously.
"Hyperhidrosis is not taken seriously as a real medical condition," said the 22-year-old. "I think people see someone sweating and think they're disgusting and don't clean themselves."
"It's a real medical condition and there's real people living with it," Darcie added.
