Columnist John Katsilometes: A Vegas doctor with a unique clip job

Friday, Oct. 14, 2005 | 7:33 a.m.

Amid Dr. Aury Nagy's dizzying medical jargon is the familiar term "sweaty palms." And he has a remedy.

The Las Vegas neurosurgeon performs a new procedure called a sympathectomy, which can eliminate the condition commonly known as sweaty palms (great name for a Las Vegas resort, actually).

The procedure, reduced to conversational English, is that Nagy makes a small porthole in each armpit to locate the overactive nerves that send sweat signals to the body. Then he clips them.

The surgery takes about an hour and is reversible, and Nagy is the only doctor in the city who performs it.

The chief side effect is "compensatory sweating," which is to sweat along the back and thighs. One in four patients experience that type of sweating, Nagy said.

The 34-year-old neurosureon is a Las Vegas native who graduated from Bishop Gorman High School, earned his bachelor's degree from Yale and his medical degree from Baylor.

By the time a sweaty-palmed patient reaches Nagy, most options have been exhausted. These include prescribed antiperspirants for the hands, electrical therapy (which involves an electrical current running through water), Botox injections and boric acids to "leatherize" the hands.

"You usually see someone who is 18 years old or so who is going to college and doesn't want to deal with this anymore," Nagy said Thursday afternoon. "They try to do homework and have to wear gloves because they will sweat so much the paper won't hold ink anymore."

Anyone who uses tools -- such as carpenters and anyone who is not me -- and suffers this condition would be a candidate for sympathectomy. More than 200,000 Americans suffer from excessive sweating annually.

"It's a serious condition," Nagy said. "It's a social problem for anyone who suffers from it." Agreed. Let's shake on it.

NoteMart

RA meet: For someone is who not particularly fond of nightclubs, I've been tugged into a few lately. The latest was RA at the Luxor. On Wednesday I ducked into opening night of "Exotique," the club's new adult after-hours show. Also in attendance were vocalist Delisco, magician Nathan Burton and comic Joe Trammel -- kind of a Vegas version of "The Surreal Life."

The production is the creation of our city's zaniest Ivy Leaguers, Doug Leferovich and Seth Yudof. Both are 33-year-old graduates of the University of Pennsylvania. Leferovich has a communications degree; Yudof earned an engineering degree, and this production is an inventive use of that education.

The show is what is known as "Eurotainment," a blend of county fair, cabaret and performance art that features assorted cross-dressers, seminude body painters and even a dwarf clad in a sweatsuit and leather cap. The show runs for four weeks on Wednesdays beginning at 9:30 p.m. The cost is $20 for men, $10 for women. Not sure about the cross-dressers ...

Room service for Mr. Hendrix: The job title is "director of customer experience." And the Las Vegas Hilton's Cami Christensen says she is the only employee in town to have that title ...

Pink eye: Our favorite pool hall/hard-rock club, Pink E's on West Flamingo Road across from the Rio, is closed. It has reportedly been shut since late May; the front door has been fixed with a heavy chain and padlock. There's no indication what is to become of the club, known for its pink-felt pool tables, but in the name of Warrant we'll get to the bottom of this ...