Trichotillomania - The disease of pulling your hair out
89When most people talk about "pulling out their own hair" they use the phrase figuratively. We've all done it; when we get frustrated with the computer for example, we will later describe the problem saying it "had me pulling my hair out". But trichotillomannia (or "trich" as it is commonly known) is not a figurative disease, it is literally a disease where the sufferer will pull their own hair or eyelashes out. Trichotillomania affects about 2 people in every 100, and though it is little studied, for those who suffer from it, it can be a deeply embarrassing problem; after all, nobody likes to have great clumps of hear missing from their head, and a full head of hair is, like it or not, one of the things people will notice about your appearance. Women are considered more attractive if they have long shiny locks of hair, and men are considered more virile if they have a good head of healthy hair. Like many behavioral diseases that are triggered by depression or emotional upset, people who don't suffer from it simply don't understand why someone would pompulsively pull out their own hair, and will often look down on those who do suffer from trich. Lets look at the disease; what causes it and what can cure it.
Trich; anxiety and depression
Like any disease, this one has milder and more severe cases. Mild sufferers pull out a hair or two when their symptoms are triggered, and you probably wouldn't notice them ore be able to pick them out from the average person walking down the street. But more severe cases of trich can result in ripping out large clumps of hair that leave you with bald patches, or plucking out all your eyelashes. Some sufferers even end up eating the hair that they have pulled out; which simply leads to more problems as their digestive tract takes a beating as well.
Trich is largely thought of as an anxiety related disorder and can be a symptom of depression. It is, in some ways a form of obsessive compulsive disorder as well, and as is common with diseases that are triggered by anxiety and stress, tends to work in a vicious circle - stress causes you to pull your hair out and the fact that you pull your hair out causes you stress. It's easy to say, just relax, but we all know in our modern world, relaxing can be tricky. It can also be very difficult for friends and family to relate to a trich sufferer and often people might just say "stop pulling"; but it isn't that simple and that's really not helpful to someone who can't stop it. You might as well tell someone to stop breathing.
Great books to help with trich
 | Help for Hair Pullers Amazon Price: $9.90 List Price: $22.95 |
 | Complete Guide to Trichotillomania Amazon Price: $21.15 List Price: $39.95 |
 | Behavior Therapy Aprroach Amazon Price: $20.04 List Price: $24.95 |
 | The hair pulling habit Amazon Price: $18.80 List Price: $28.95 |
What works for treating trichotillomania
The usual treatments for trich take the form of medication or counselling. Medication can be prescribed by your doctor and will depend on your symptoms but some of the common drugs prescribed are Prozac, Paxil and Valium, essentially antidepressants. Psychotherapy and hypnotherapy have both been shown to work wonders in helping people stop pulling their hair out. Many people who have run through the gamut of western medicine with little or no help have turned to complementary medicine to try and address their trich, and Homeopathy, Aromatherapy, Acupuncture all have reportedly helped many people with their trichotillomania. For an immediate topical relief if you are a puller though, try some aloe vera - it is very soothing to itchy scalps. Many people with more severe cases and large clumps of hair missing will also turn to a wig maker so that they at least don't have to suffer the stress of going out in public with large clumps of missing hair - that alone can reduce your anxiety levels tremendously
One of the keys to beating trich is forming a good support network - there are many forums on the internet that you can get on and chat with people who have the same problems and it can be very comforting just knowing that you aren't the only person in the world who is suffering. from the problem. There are lots of books available from Amazon that offer lots of good suggestions on how to understand and cope with trich specifically and also anxiety in general. Why not try a meditative CD?. It is important to learn what the triggers are for you that make you want to pull your hair out - and this is where a good hypnotherapist or psychologist can help you, because they can point you towards your triggers and help you find them more quickly. Once you know what makes you pull your hair out, you can start formulating ways of dealing with the urge. Habit reversal and stimulus conrol techniques as well as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy are all areas worth exploring.
Homeopathy and Aromatherapy can both help in keeping you calm and homeopathic remedies like Belladonna or Cuprum can help ease away anxiety and depression which will in turn help keep your hair pulling to a minimum. Acupuncture is such a vast subject that it could be a whole bunch of articles itself, but for trich and anxiety disorders in general, a good acupuncturist will find the imbalance in your body and bring it back to harmony so you don't want to pull your hair out anymore
Relaxation and Meditation CDs
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As we can see, this is a very unpleasant disease, and one that really leaves embarrassing visible marks on the those suffering from it - huge clumps of hair missing from your head is not something any of us would want to suffer from. Anxiety and depression based disease are often the most difficult to treat because, unlike diseases caused by viruses for example, each case is unique and can't simply be cured by a pill or drug. Everyone hase their own unique triggers that will set them off on hair pulling, and when traditionaly antidepressants don't work, many trich sufferers seek counselling, hypnotherapy or try out complementary medicines like homeopathy or acupuncture to good effect. Many people also benefit amazingly well from simple relaxation CDs that are available online; just finding that moment of calm can be a life saver.
At the end of the day, finding out what works for you is the most important thing; everyone is different after all and what works as a remedy for one person may not work for another, so don't give up because there is a cure for your trichotillomania.
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i have this problem and cant seem to stop and whats real bad is i freakin eat it. i heard eating your hair causes you to have worms in your intestines.
Chealsea, Sadly. I Eat It Too, . Im Still WOndering What It Does To Your Insides, & Im Really Scared.- Ive Been Doing This Since The Age Of 5 , And Im Now 13 . 8 Years. It Makes Me Wonder What I Have Inside Of Me & If It Could Possibly Kill Me. At This Point, I Just Need Halp & Someone To Listen.
I used to pull out little bits of hair every now and then to calm me down, but have since quit. I'm about to turn fifteen though, and last night i basically blacked out. When i "woke up" my head hurt, when i looked in a mirror i could see that i had yanked out 1/6 of my hair. It's terrifying which just makes me pull more...
im very surpised that im not the only one that pulls out their hair & nails. I guess I seem to have it all. its very frustrating not being able to stop, I try and try and can't do it.
shave your heads.
I am having this problem to. And it seems to get worse over time.
For all of you that eat your hair, hair does not digest in the human stomach, so it will never leave your system. The only way to get it out is to have it surgically removed.
I dont know how it got started, but i pull out hair and like..eat the roots off. I feel like a sick person. And today at school my friend told me about this girl she knows who pulls out and eats her hair because of a disease she has. And that its so bad, she has to wear a hat to resist the temptation. Ive been doing this since I was about 6, and im 12 now. I havent told anyone, and finding out i sort of have a disease wasnt easy..
no offense but it's good to know others deal with this too
I also have this most embarassing disease...i've been pulling ou my hair and eating the roots since i was 12 years...i am now 28 years....with a four month old daughter...i have been trying desperately to stop....but can't.....i need help!!!
I can't stop pulling out my hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows for as long as i can remember. It's very frustrating and hard to stop, it is good to know other people are having this problem as well and i'm not the only one
I thought I wad the only person in the world that would pull and eat the roots of my hair ,in a way iam relief that iam not the only one,but I would do anything to quit It's a very bad habit
hello everyonee. i used to have this disease, but i simply jus pulled my hair out and nothing more. i had embarassing bald spots EVERYWHERE. i started when i was 10 but i stopped when i was 12. Im 14 now and my hair has fortunately grown back, but i do pull hair occassionally. what i did to help stop, was to wear a rubber band on my wrist, and everytime i had an urge to pull, i snap the rubberband and it worked! maybe if you try, it'll help you stop. (:
I have this and I eat it too all the time I have two partly bald patches on the sides of my head. And I only go for the thick ones.
i am 13 AND CANT STOPPP I HAVE HAD TRICH FOR 2 YEARS HOPE IT ENDS SOON!
am in the habit of plucking my hair ( on the head or even from mustache and sometime pubic hair too) and eat their root and after dat slowly bite and eat the hair plucked millimeter by millimeter. am i any depression. i cant think i am often sad for no reason . please advise friends
I am a 44 year old female and have been pulling my hair since I was 11. Nothing worked until now. I finally just shaved my head. It was the best thing I ever did. I was scared at first but after a while, everyone got used to my shaved head, afterall, your hair is not who you are. Hair means nothing in the big scheme of things. My friends and family all still love me. Anyway, I kept it shaved for a couple months until I felt the habit was broken.(I never even had an urge)Its as if my brain knew that there wasn't anything up there to pull, so why bother. I have since started to grow it back. It is now at prime pulling length and I still have not had one urge. My hair is the nicest its looked in 30 years. Shave your heads!! You won't die, I promise.
I am 12 years old and been pulling my hair sence 10 so i have my hair growing back but sometimes i would use a rubber band and nothing....Sometimes i wish i could stop because i know its not hurting any one else it only affects me.I just sit in my room and think about how preety i would look with long black silky beautiful hair.
I am also glad to hear some of comments, We will get the victory over this in Jesus name. Lord I come before you eith the problom we have please help us, help us stop doing this I am tierd of doing this I fill strange and like a freak sometimes and the more I try to stop the worse it gets. Please Lord take this away right now in the name of Jesus u care about every thing that concerns us, so Lord touch us all tonigh in Jesus name. Thank you all for yr openness about something that is so hard to talk about love you all in Jesus
No offense, but it does feel good to read all these comments and realize that I'm not the only one suffering from this problem. It started when I was 12 and I distinctly remember why it started too. I had such beautiful, straight black hair and there was one wavy strand which used to stick up and irritate me. I plucked it out and examined the root. It somehow fascinated me and I got hooked on to it. Pluck my hair, examine the root, play with the root part and discard the hair. It became so addictive, I just couldn't quit. My mom caught me pulling my hair one time and was super mad at me. She thought I'm crazy and made me promise I wouldn't do such weird things again. I tried my best to stop it and I did for a few weeks I guess, but the urge still persisted. It's been 10 years now since that happened and my hair has thinned drastically on the scalp. My hair which was once so beautiful and healthy looking, is lifeless now. I'm trying hard to overcome this and I hope I can :( I haven't ever discussed this with anyone else and typing this right now makes me feel like I've shed a heavy load off of my mind.
Thanks for your open comments. It really does make a difference to people like me who were in the dark, thinking that they are the only one with a weird habit!
i've been doing this since 3rd grade but never to my eyelashes and head hair.But to my eyebrow,arms,legs,stomache.i never had the urge for my scalp.which im definatley glad for. I never thought depression or anxiety would trigger it.I went a year without doing this but since highschool started and being in honors programs it got worse.But i guess im glad im starting normal classes next year.Sorry i cant stay on topic,but im also happy im not the only one dealing with this.it makes me feel alot about about myself
Hang in there guys. I know the frustration. Have OCD and Trichotillomania. Have since i was 4 or 5. Started with eyelashes then moved to eyebrows and now I am almost 37 and have been pulling head hair (and yes eating roots) since i turned 30. I have shaved it several times and as soon as it gets to a certain length or texture i pull it out again. Very frustrating and debilitating and i am sometimes house bound. BUT, I will not give up. I try to set a good example with my kids and it DOES help to share it with others..true friends and family will be surprisingly supportive and people who label you as weird have no room in your life. Good luck to you all and if anyone has anything that helps, please share. I am currently trying hypnotherapy..I will keep ya posted.
I straighten my hair everyday... In school I will have tons of hairs that are wavy which freaks me out, so I sit in school and pull out hairs and by the end of class will be covered in hair.. I used to have long beautiful hair and now it seems to be getting shorter. I don't have bald spots but I need help on how to stop! I'm in highschool and need to know what I can do to stop!! Please help me
Does hair grow back with homeopathic treatment after you stop pulling hair
I'm Debbie and I'm 19 years old. Like many of you I have the same problem, I pull my eyelashes out untill they are all gone and I hate it. My eyes get sore and I'm terrified of going out and people seeing me with no eyelashes.
Ive been pulling my hair out and eat the root for about 2 years now. Its very addictive and I cant stop! My family tends think Im crazy. I cant help but pull it out ; snd when I say "it" , its because any strand of hair with a strange texture , I have the urge to pull it out and eat the root without any hesitation. Im depressed by the fact that I have a disease that I cant control. I dont want to make it a big issue and have a doctor think Im insane. I dont know what to do. I have a slight bald spot on the top of my head.
I started doing this when I was about fifteen. I have done it on and off since then. I am now 31. I absolutely hate it, but it truly is a real thing and not something easily fixed. But I found a woman who had trichotillomania for many, many years and who finally learned how to cure herself. She now has a program to help all of us, who, like her suffer with this horrible disorder. Her name is Abbey Leora Rorher. I truly believe she is a Godsend. But she has done so much research on so many different people who suffer with trich and all of their similarities. And her findings are so interesting and I feel so true. We are all highly sensitive persons, moreso than others, and at one point suffered some sort of trauma emotionally, even if to someone else it wouldn't have phased them, and pulling out your hair soothes it. I am still trying to figure out what sort of traumatic experience I had to start this all for me. She says even such a thing as a childhood move could have triggered it to begin with, or a parent yelling. Check out her website. She is awesome and can help any of us. Everyone has their stryggles and trials in this life, but this is an awful one to overcome, but not impossible. I think learning as much as you can about it is a way to start getting over it and getting to the 'root' of the problem, to fix it permanently.
I noticed a girl in my class had this in about 3rd grade and u always uses to do it but it wasn't serious. But in 5th grade I got my first bald patch and it really freaked me out so I tried to stop. I did stop and my grew back but I still pull it and eat it but not enough to get a bald patch again. I got this under control without any help and I'm lucky. My mom has depression... Is depression genetic??
Hello All! I started pulling out the hair from my head when I was about 15 years old. I remember how it started. One day while I was sitting down in my house, I was rubbing my head or running my fingers through my hair when my fingers came across a hair that was hard, short and curly. It was located around the spot where everyone has that one little natural bald spot. I thought it was odd because my hair is straight and not hard like plastic.. I then ran my fingers back and forth on that spot determined to find that hair again. When I finally found it again, I tried grasping it with my fingers to pull it out to examine it. It was a bugger to get because of how tiny it was, but I managed to yank it out. I looked at it once I pulled it out and it was a small BLACK curly hard hair, shaped in a spiral like a spring. It was so strange. Everything about the hair. My hair was brown not black. Straight not curly. Soft not hard. Long not short.. But I have pulled this hair out of my head.
Well a couple of months later or so I was doing the same thing. Rubbing my head, when in the same spot, another hair had grew. I yanked it out right away and examined it. It was just like the last one.
This made me curious. I wanted to see if I could find other hairs like that in different areas on my head. I didn't find anymore like that but it didn't stop me from searching for more later on. Every so often, I would purposely search the area for another odd hair. It ended up being other parts of my head that I would search. It didn't have to be a hard,black spiral hair anymore. It was Any hair that was different from the majority. First I started pulling from the top.Even if there was a hard/ wavier hair I was aiming at, I would be pulling out others along with the hair I was aiming at because of them being so close to that particular hair. Soon enough I was left with a tiny bald patch on the top of my head. I could hide it easily though with the rest of my hair.Also, after a hair was pulled, I felt good. A year later things got much worse. I began to look for any hair that was different to pull. Even one's that had a little bend in them. If my hairs are darker,harder,shaped different etc. I will pull it. And this has continued up till now. I won't pull in public. I pull in my house or in a car.I've been pulling my hair for about two years now. I turned 17 a few days ago. I have bald patches all over my head and I still continue to pull. I have been seeing a Psychologist for about a year now for my OCD but once things started getting better with the OCD I told her about my hair pulling as I already knew that I had Trichotillomania. She gave me a book to read on it and I done some research and we are now trying other ways to deal with it, as some ideas have failed. I put my hair up in a poneytail each day and wear a bandana so I won't be pulling the hairs that are trying to grow back on the top of my head. I also wear hats alot. This is helping but if I'm not wearing anything on my head or if my hair isn't up, I'll pull for hours. When I'm bored, stressed or waiting for something that may be taking a while I begin to pull my hair. I mostly have the urges when I'm sitting and doing something for a while like being on the computer, watching t.v. or doing schoolwork. I pull the most hair when I have nothing on my head or I'm in bed waiting to fall asleep because then, I don't wear anything on my head. All I do is pull the hair from my scalp. I do not eat the roots. I just pull, examine and throw the hair away. The odd time I will pull hair from other areas of my body but it's the hair on my head that I struggle with. I'm working on my trich now but it is a challenge for sure and it won't be easy. The thing to do is start working on your hair pulling now because if you let it go any longer it will certainly get worse. Take it from me. I know it may give pleasure to pull but in the long run, the results will not be good. I know the embarrassement of it all but it is nothing to be ashamed of. This is more than a habit. It is something that you have no control over. People only struggling with trich are perfectly sane. You may feel like you're crazy or weird, but you're not. I also feel strange for doing it and even stranger because I also have OCD. I've been taking Prozac for a little over a year now to manage my once severe OCD. But it doesn't seem to be helping with the trich. I have lot's of good strategies for helping with trich (hair pulling) I will post some for you all. It may help :)
i will be turning 19 soon and i have been pulling out my hair and eating it since i was about 10
i have been so scared of what is doing to my insides that this is the first time i look it up to see what i can do to stop it.
reading what everybody wrote makes me feel better becasue i know i'm not the only one becasue my family looks at me as an Embarrassment i even shaved my head to hide it but still i find a way to pluck it out.
right now as i type this i'm sitting with four big bald spots on my head and in a coulple of hours my mom will yell at me to get a job then tell me no one will hire me becasue of my hair and that i will need to stop pulling out my hair like i do it on purpose
Hiiiiii..
I was in 8 grade,since i started pulling out my hair and nw iam 18 years old and dont knw wat to do,really sick of my hair,i am havin a bald patch on head and damn embrass of dat,really want to die,my parents are really worried ,my mum suffered from high B.P cuzz of me..
I dont know how to get rid of dis dirty habit..
I am 12 I pull out my hair. After I pull it out it put the root to my lips and feel the cool sensation that it brings. I can stop I started doing this at the begginging of 6th grade. I need help I have bald spots all over my mom is really stressed about this and I don't know what to do
My grandson picks his hair out. he just started this behavior in the last 2 years . I didnt understand this behavior until now.
It's nice to know I'm not alone.
hello, My name is Rosie and i'm 21. I have been pulling since I was 11. Nothing I tried helped with my pulling,I think i had pulled aboout 90% of my hair out. I recently had the contrceptive implant fitted and my urges just stopped. I think TTM is to do with a hormone imbalance, thats why my urges stopped when i had extra hormones in me from the implant. I wear clip in extensions to hide the damage but of course as we all know, extension damage your hair. Its a vicious circle, wearing extensions to hade the patches.. but they do more damage than good. I am considering shaving my head. I was worried what people would think but it's got nothing to do with other people! We are not mad ladies (or gents) we simply have a problem that alot of other people do not understand. I will let you know when I have shaved my head and how it is going (and growing!) much love and support to you all xxx
deepestwisdom 2 years ago
Thanks for this hub - it's really helpful in spreading the word about trichotillomania.