over-the-counter antiperspirant lotion applied directly to his skin. “I started using the lotion to help when I was playing basketball—around four doses a day. It would stop the sweating, but my hands would get swollen and puffy,” Cole recalls. “Cole has played a lot of sports since he was a kid, but the sweating and swelling was really bad from so much fluid and gravity,” explains Cole’s mother, Lynn. “Once the prescription antiperspirant stopped working, we were sent to a dermatologist to get oral medication to try to reduce the sweating and the swelling. But those also decreased the amount of fluid in the body altogether, so they caused other side effects. That’s when we moved on to Botox.” TAKING A SHOT As a basketball player, Cole was used to taking shots—but he’d much rather the ones that went out of his hands and into the basket, not the ones that went painfully into them. The next step in his treatment was 30 shots of Botox per hand every six months—all in an attempt to block the nerve signals that activated his sweat glands. “He endured three rounds of Botox in both hands and one more in his right hand,” Lynn continues. “But all that pain only yielded a little relief.” In the meantime, Cole had been doing his own research, seeking a solution to the problem
that had been plaguing him for years. “Once I got to high school, I was so fed up with it. It was always on my mind. It was my biggest worry and my biggest stress,
He endured three rounds of Botox in both hands and one more in his right hand. But all that pain only yielded a little relief.
18 HEALTHY KIDS MAGAZINE FALL 2023
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