Hello I am a 17 year old male and I have recently had armpit issues. Before this school year, I have never had really any armpit problems. I guess it all started at the beginning of the school year. In the mornings I have team sports (basically basketball) well I started to notice that my armpits got really sweaty even when I wasn't even in class yet. I would just be standing around waiting for us to start and my armpits started to sweat. Sooner or later my armpits kind of started to somewhat sour I guess because of the constant moisture or something? No matter how much I put on "antiperspirant" deodorant, the smell and sweat seemed to just eat right through it. It didn't really matter what kind of deodorant I put on. Eventually, the sweating slowed down and the sour smell kind of went away but then it really started to smell bad. It was a really strong stinky odor at some times like onions or something. It's still persistent now and I would really really really like your help on this issue of mine please! Thank you for your time, GmanR
1 Answers
Hey GmanR, thanks for sharing your story. The bacterial community in the armpits is a mixture of 100 different kinds of bacteria. It is dominated by only few of them (this means that 80% of the armpit community consists of only some species,while the other 20% is consisted of the other, low-abundant species). The armpit community is usually quite stable over time. We do see that sudden changes are possible: a shift in bacterial community can happen. This can be due to a wide range of different reasons. It could be that another kind of bacterium was 'picked up', or that something host-related (age, hormones, medication, etc), or environment-related (climate, clothes, nutrition, hygiene habits, etc) changed, resulting in another bacterial equilibrium in the armpit. Using more antiperspirants and different kinds of antibacterial compounds often leads to a aggravated body odor: the bacterial equilibrium evolved towards more malodor bacteria. I guess you now have a dominance of a typical malodorous bacterium. It is difficult to get rid of it. We are working on a solution that would turn around this situation. More info will follow later. Best, Chris
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