HANDCUFFED BY PERSPIRATION; SWEATY PALMS - WHETHER FROM PHYSIOLOGICAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL CAUSES - CAN TURN A SIMPLE HANDSHAKE INTO AN ANXIOUS MOMENT.

Byline: Jenifer Hanrahan Daily News Staff Writer

Reynaldo Husband had sweaty palms for as long as he can remember. As a kid, his hands sweated so badly that he ruined school papers.

Even as he was falling for his future wife, he avoided holding her hands because his were always perspiring.

``She thought I was just nervous. She thought it was kind of cute,'' said Husband, a 34-year-old firefighter. ``Finally she asked me, `Why are your hands always sweating?' ''

Excessive sweating can strike almost any body part - underarms, feet, torso. Some people even start to sweat when they chew.

But the most common form that sends people rushing to doctors for relief is palmar hyperhidrosis, or really, really sweaty palms.

It's not going to kill you, but it can put a damper on a social and professional life.

``People feel that if people notice they are sweating, they'll ... be perceived as nervous and weak,'' said Dr. Paul Bohn, a Santa Monica psychiatrist. ``When people feel they are revealing more than they want to reveal, they feel embarrassed or humiliated.''

When you have palmar hyperhidrosis, everyday tasks become difficult, if not impossible. One doctor treated a secretary whose sweaty palms made her keyboard short circuit. Another treated a dentist whose surgical gloves squished and filled up with sweat.

How do you know if you have palmar hyperhidrosis?

Dr. J. Patrick Johnson, assistant professor of neurosurgery at University of California, Los Angeles, diagnoses patients by shaking their hands - and shaking, and shaking.

``If they get wetter and wetter, then they probably have it,'' Johnson said. ``In the most severe forms, perspiration drips off their fingers, as though they've dipped their hands into a sink full of water.''

Typically, sweating is the body's way of cooling itself. But the areas most prone to excessive sweating - the palms, soles and underarms - have little affect on body-temperature regulation.

While doctors are not completely certain of its cause, hyperhidrosis is likely due to nervous-system abnormality. For some people, it's an extreme response to emotional distress. For others, it's a physiological problem.

Keep in mind that certain medical conditions can trigger excessive sweating. If the onset of excess sweating comes on suddenly in adulthood, you should get a checkup.

Medical professionals with experience treating hyperhidrosis offered this advice on getting sweat under control:

Try therapy. Excessive sweating can be the result of social anxiety or phobias. Psychologists typically use two techniques to treat it: psychotherapy, which attempts to discover the cause of the anxiety, and relaxation exercises.

Apply super-strong antiperspirants on the palms. Drysol is a powerful prescription antiperspirant that's very similar in makeup to underarm antiperspirants, said Dr. Gail Drayton, a dermatologist with a practice in West Los Angeles. ``Most of our patients will stop sweating in three to five days,'' Drayton said. ``I've never had anyone not respond to it.''

When all else fails, consider surgery. For the most bothersome cases that don't respond to any other treatment, surgeons can cut the sympathetic nerve in the chest cavity that controls sweaty palms by making a small incision under the armpits. The roughly 2-year-old procedure, which takes about 30 minutes to an hour under general anesthesia, is covered in full or in part by some insurance policies.

After enduring the sweating since childhood and finding no other method of curtailing it effectively, Husband underwent surgery to disable the nerve that caused his hands to sweat.

The procedure is expensive - $7,500 at the Beverly Hills Clinic for Special Surgery - but Husband said it was worth it.

``The results were instantly noticeable,'' he said. ``My hands were dry.''

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Photo: `In the most severe forms (of hyperhidrosis), perspiration drips off their fingers, as though they've dipped their hands into a sink full of water.'

Dr. J. Patrick Johnson

assistant professor of neurosurgery, University of California, Los Angeles

Myung J. Chun/Daily News