The amount of compensatory sweating depends on the patient, the damage that the white rami communicans incurs, and the amount of cell body reorganization in the spinal cord after surgery.
Other potential complications include inadequate resection of the ganglia, gustatory sweating, pneumothorax, cardiac dysfunction, post-operative pain, and finally Horner’s syndrome secondary to resection of the stellate ganglion.
www.ubcmj.com/pdf/ubcmj_2_1_2010_24-29.pdf

After severing the cervical sympathetic trunk, the cells of the cervical sympathetic ganglion undergo transneuronic degeneration
After severing the sympathetic trunk, the cells of its origin undergo complete disintegration within a year.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0442.1967.tb00255.x/abstract

Saturday, December 26, 2009

phantom sweating - autonomic neuropathy symptom

Phantom sweating is a sensation in which the patient feels that sweat is about to burst out of skin pores, but in which sweating never actually occurs. In a series of 100 patients undergoing bilateral upper dorsal sympathectomy for palmar hyperihidrosis, 82 patients were specifically questioned and 48 (59%) reported phantom sweating. Phantom sweating started soon after the operation, was triggered by the same stimuli that caused hyperhidrosis preoperatively, lasted for a few seconds, and tended to diminish with time. In an average follow-up of 18 months, the phenomenon disappeared in 11 patients (23%). Phantom sweating is probably a symptom of residual sympathetic activity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/911065
Angiology. 1977 Nov;28(11):799-802.