When I broke my hand the doc had me get Zeasorb-AF to put down in the cast to prevent nastiness. Well, I’ve also been dealing w/ deodorant making my armpits itchy for a long time. Finally, as a last ditch effort before I killed myself, I put on the Zeasorb-AF after the deodorant for a few days in a row. I put it on just like one might put talcum powder under one’s armpits. Lo and behold, after about one week the maddening itchiness was gone. I reapply for a couple of days every now and again. The itchiness has been gone for months. My guess is that it isn’t the deodorant per se, but something that grows in the sweat and Zeasorb-AF kills it. (You can see from the link that there is more than one brand.)
Since I know what sort of torture the itchy-armpit thing can be, I felt obliged to share (I’ve seen threads on this in the past, I think). Good luck.
IIRC, Zeasorb-AF is an anti-fungal. While that might solve the problem for some, it won’t work for everyone.
A common cause of itchy-armpits is the “anti-persperant” component in deoderants. Another is “fragrance”. Fragrance is an irritant though it may not bother a lot of people in small amounts. One or both components can drive people batshit with itchiness.
So if applying deoderant specifically seems to cause the problem (as opposed to just the moisture which is a happy place for fungus), it might be worthwhile to ask your doc to test you for a fragrance allergy or simply to experiment with unscented products or deoderants that don’t contain an anti-perseperant ingredient.
If your armpits itch even without applying any deoderant, it may be that the moisture has provided the perfect environment for some kind of fungus infection (kinda like athletes foot.)
FTR, I used to not wear deodorant on weekends to get relief, and it was generally effective. Additionally, neither my pharmacist nor doctor suggested something antifungal—and my doctor is not a hack. I acknowledge your point, but I don’t want it to strengthen the learned-helplessness model some people may be in (just as I was).
The product won’t make an allergy go away. But for those it can help, it would be nice to see them benefit from my dumb luck.
I used to use Mitchum anti-perspirant, and it made my armpits itch like crazy. I switched to an anti-perspirant/deodorant with a ‘moisturizer’ in it and the itching stopped.
Oh, dear. I didn’t mean to imply that you had done anything other than find a trick that wrked. I was just trying to offer additional possibilties for others who have similar itching.
I should have said: If an anti-fungal doens’t work, try the other options too. Sensitivity to the chemical stuff is really common. So if an anti-fungal doesn’t work at all, then one should look at the other common problems.
I used Old Spice deodorant for years. Then they must have changed something, and I got rashes under my arms. I switched to Mennen Speed Stick, no itch.
I stopped using anti-persperants long ago, because they smell bad on me.
My mom warned me about Mitchum’s. Apparently, it gave my uncle a horrible rash. I used it for quite a while, but stopped. Not because it itched, but because it didn’t work all that well for me.
Arm & Hammer deodorant, on the other hand, works for me. And my girlfriend likes the smell.
There’s plenty of different kinds.
When I switched from Dri Idea liquid to gel, things improved.
The liquid has alcohol, which is why it dries fast, but that also itches.
I used to have this problem with a lot of deodorants/antiperspirants. I started using the new Dove unscented antiperspirant and it works very well - it’s very smooth and doesn’t make pit stains on white shirts.
Most antipersperants make my armpits itch like fury, which was a bit of a problem when I was living in Hawaii and running around Waikiki looking after Japanese tourists. It’s even problematic here up north with winter closing in. For some reason, Avon’s antipersperants don’t make me itch, even the ones with fragrance. That’s why I used to buy about a dozen of them at a time, since I didn’t have a regular Avon lady.