Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy surgery is an invasive, major surgical procedure that involves collapsing one lung at a time to reach and destroy the nerve pathways responsible for the overactive sweating.
Many physicians advise against the procedure due to the many irreversible side-effects, the most common being compensatory sweating. This is where the patient begins sweating severely in other parts of the body, usually more excessively than the original sweating.