Trichotillomania Treatment Blog

Trichotillomania, which is a compulsive behavior to pull hair during stressful times, is usually self-inflicted and harmful. It usually roots from emotional distress, anxiety, depression, and trauma that may have been left unresolved for a long time. The habit and addiction to hair pulling may start at the age of 9 to 13.

If your child is one with trichotillomania, therapy is necessary. As a parent or guardian, you are also a part of the therapy and the whole treatment process. Here are tips for you when you are helping a child under trichotillomania therapy deal with the problems at home.

•    Be calm and do your best not to be emotionally affected by the sight of your child pulling her hair. The most important thing to remember is never to make the child feel shameful about her behavior. It would definitely help not to ridicule or scold her about it. Any negative stimuli from you can worsen her anxieties and make her just want to pull hair some more and therefore, defeat the purposes of the trichotillomania therapy she is going through.
•    Force yourself to see the bigger picture and understand that your child has made her own way to cope with her stress and difficulties. The trichotillomania therapy should help correct this soon enough. You should know, that hair pulling doesn’t feel painful to the child. It gives her a soothing feeling.
•    Learn about the addiction and do what you can to understand the condition better. You should also take responsibility in making sure she undergoes proper trichotillomania therapy or treatment.
•    Find ways you can help her by talking to people with similar experiences.

Like any clinical disorders, trichotillomania is treatable with a lot of discipline, determination, and trichotillomania support from experts and family members. There should be a group that the person can rely on for her bad habits of pulling hair when she is tensed. This support group can be members of the family or close friends who care about her total recovery.

In order to show trichotillomania support, one has to be aware that a member of the family or a friend is suffering from such a mental disorder. Often these people will be hiding their true conditions because they do not want to be discovered or to be exposed. They feel they will be rejected even more and that just adds up to their stress.

Professional help is necessary in order for the person to awaken to the reality that she is really hurting herself when she pulls her hair. A technique is to monitor how the person reacts to certain stimuli or triggers. When the triggers are identified, it should be easier for everyone to help. Everyone can extend trichotillomania support by helping her get distracted when something is certainly going to trigger an attack.

But, what if the person with trichotillomania is alone when the anxiety starts to build up? It will be best for her to control the urge on her own by defocusing herself from the itch to pull her hair. She must have ready materials around her she can get her hands on so that they will get busy. Any handy project will probably be a good form of distraction. Loved ones can give trichotillomania support by providing her with things to do with her hands so that she won’t resort to hair pulling.

People who hurt themselves in order to escape from their anxieties urgently need trichotillomania help. The thing about hair pulling as a distraction is that it is traumatic. Traumatic for the skin, that is. Because people with trichotillomania often do not feel pain when the pull or pluck their hair out. Instead, they feel relieved and somehow there’s a pleasurable sensation that they can escape to.

Trichotillomania help should be extended through therapies that can help these people refrain from punishing themselves when things do not work out the way they should. When anxiety, depression, and tension build up, those with trichotillomania simply turn to themselves and do the hair pulling to ease them of any emotional pain or heartache.

This condition is rather addicting because of the high that the victims get from the repetitive hair pulling. This compulsive behavior also prompts the person to chew on hair follicles or swallow the hair they pulled out. This could lead to intestinal problems since hair is hardly digestible. The trichotillomania help with hair ingestion is surgery since it is dangerous when the intestines are already totally clogged by hairballs.

Immediate family members can give immediate trichotillomania help by monitoring their loved one who is suffering from it. They can watch out for known triggers so that they can assist in the prevention. If there is a conscious effort to stop it, it can be stopped early.

If seeking for trichotillomania help, you can search the Internet to find out more about the disorder. There are ways to help the patient and there are websites too, that offer their products or services as trichotillomania help.

Studies have been made to establish the frequency and prevalence of trichotillomania (TTM), a kind of mental disorder that exhibits repetitive behavior. It could be classified as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) because of the person’s tendencies to become obsessed with compulsive and harmful pulling of the hair. There are ways to stop trichotillomania. It is just a matter of detecting it in your loved ones because they won’t admit that they’re doing it.

Prevalence of trichotillomania that results to noticeable hair loss is about 1.5 percent in males and 3.4% in females. People from different age groups are found to have TTM but this disorder is more common among individuals 9 to 13 years old. About 70 to 93 percent of the preadolescents and young adults with TTM are females.

There has been a call to stop trichotillomania since there has been an increase in the number of cases throughout the years. It is estimated that about 3 to 5 percent of the population has TTM. There is no specific profile of the person with TTM. There should be a need to stop trichotillomania because it affects people of different backgrounds and types.

The hair is the center for release of people with TTM because it is readily available and it is free. Females are especially prone since they usually have long tresses that give them feelings of relief whenever they stroke, twist, or rub the strands. These actions often lead to pulling. It is often very difficult to stop trichotillomania because the patients want that pleasurable feeling they get when they pull hair.

Trichotillomania, also known as trich or TTM, is a behavior that develops into a habit, a bad one at that. It is closely related to nail biting or skin picking, which can be classified as mental disorder. It is the bad habit of not being able to stop pulling out hair for some reason.

A person with TTM has an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is a condition in which the person creates a diversion for his anxiety – in this case, she just won’t stop pulling out hair. A trich patient has this habit that seems like an itch that he just can’t stop scratching because it makes her feel good. It keeps her away from the negative things surrounding her and it makes her forget any ache or pain.

If you are suffering from TTM you must have already tried controlling the disorder alone because you don’t want people to find out about your condition. If you are one of those who want to stop pulling out hair for good, you first have to recognize that you are not well – that you need help.

Repetitive movements that are harmful and mostly self-inflicted are mostly caused by something that makes the person feel depressed. The anxiety is often too strong that the person has to block it so she won’t need to confront it. To block it off, she will shift her attention to her scalp, eyebrow, eyelashes, arms, legs, or pubic area and won’t stop pulling out hair until she calms down. There are treatments for such a disorder if only the person will come out and ask for one.

Individuals who have the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Trichotillomania just couldn’t stop hair pulling. They may be pulling hair from their scalps or plucking hair from eyelashes, eyebrows, arms, legs, or pubic area. These people mostly have bald spots on their heads and on the other parts mentioned.

Most of these living in the dark, hiding their frustrations, pains, and anxieties have very low self-esteem.  This is evidenced by their lack of social life. A lot of those with such behavior often are shy and anti-social.

Since it may be impossible to fully cover up the results of trichotillomania, some people would by using props like hats or wigs. Those who have plucked their eyebrows cover up by drawing their eyebrows with eye pencil. They find ways to cover up the damages that their hair pulling has caused in them

Those who can’t stop hair puling can be likened to those who do nail biting or those who have dermatillomania (compulsive skin picking). These all spring from emotional triggers like anxiety or depression. Those who can’t stop hair pulling often fetch some really soothing feelings from their acts that’s why it is totally difficult for them to let go.

And since the disorder may have started during childhood and had only been detected lately, there is a chance that the kid may already be too hooked on that pleasurable place she goes to when there are threats to her feelings. So, it will be a bit difficult to sway them towards more harmless habits.

Most of the people who are suffering from hair pulling disorder called trichotillomania (TTM) would do their thing in private. They would do what they can to hide the activity. There is fear in being exposed about having this kind of psychological trouble.

Since these people are quite secretive, they will delay seeking treatment for as long as they can. What they do is pull hair from places that are hardly noticeable unless inspected. They will conceal their bald patches if only to be left undiscovered. Many of those with this hair pulling disorder have not admitted to themselves yet that there is something wrong that is going on.

Most of the victims have desperately tried to stop the impulsive behavior on their own but have failed because they must have used the wrong kind of treatment. The DIY way some people stop themselves is by wearing gloves or hats, or by taping their fingers together.

Trich, the other short term for this hair pulling disorder usually begins during childhood. There is really no solid evidence as to why there seems to be more females than males that have TTM. Studies show that there are many biological factors that contribute to the cause of TTM. These factors include the brain structure or if there’s viral infection.

A trich patient exhibits depression and he tends to become too shy or intimidated because of low self-esteem. His hair pulling disorder attacks when there is something that makes her feel agitated or extremely frustrated. It’s a good thing that TTM can be treated and managed. It is just a matter of discovering the disorder early so it can be treated immediately.

Hair pulling is an impulsive tendency of some people when they are under extreme stress or immense feelings of anxiety. This hair-pulling tendency is a disorder called trichotillomania (TTM) or trich for short.

When a person is suffering from trichotillomania, she will start doing some hair pulling when she feels depressed, stressed out, or when something just doesn’t feel right. Trichotillomania is characterized by hair loss due to pulling of hair off the scalp, eyelashes, brows, armpit, or pubic area. The usual culprits are the fingers but there are some who use tweezers for hair pulling.

You can suspect hair-pulling disorder if the person has bald patches or over plucked hair. Trichotillomania is also referred to as compulsive hair pulling. It is considered as a kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Impulse Control Disorder, which roots from the built-up tension inside. This tension makes her automatically respond by pulling hair. The act gives her a feeling of relief from the negative emotion she has.

Hair pulling can be consciously and unconsciously done. The mere fact that the person is experiencing pleasure in the activity makes her want to do it even if there are no emotional triggers. This is what makes this kind of addiction harder to stop.

Aside from pulling hair from herself, a person with trich may also pull hair from other people close by or pets. There are instances when the person would also chew on the hair she pulled out and this leads to ingestion. When so much hair has accumulated in the intestines, there will be problems that will require major surgery.

Since compulsive hair pulling is a disturbing condition, people who suffer from it should look for ways to correct it. Trichotillomania treatment is available and there are a lot of ways it is performed. There are no medications known or approved for the trichotillomania treatment. This makes people with this disorder turn to therapies or cognitive behavioral treatments.

One of the ways to help a person with trichotillomania is to teach him to redirect his compulsive and impulsive tendencies. Attacks and responses should be logged and monitored together with the situation that triggered it. That way, the person can identify what makes him want to pull his hair to find relief.

When the causes and effects have been identified, it is always easier for the person to make conscious efforts to divert into a more acceptable medium for release. When she knows that the tension will build up soon given a possible trigger, she can start to control herself and do other things with her hands instead of pulling her hair.

The key is in acceptance that there is a problem. Since most of those who need trichotillomania treatments are hiding in closets with their conditions, it will take a longer time for them to correct their disorders. Many deny that there is a problem especially if they are feeling better with what they are doing with themselves. A lot of these patients worry about what people may think when they are discovered – this one even adds up to their anxieties. Additional stress only worsens their problem because they cling to the hair pulling distraction more and more.  Trichotillomania treatment is necessary for these people to start living normally again.

Hair pulling consciously or unconsciously is a mental disorder that can be detected by inspecting for scalp lesions or lesions in other hairy areas like eyebrows, lashes, of pubic area. The clinical term is trichotillomania or trich for short.

Most of those who suffer from trich are those who are in the first 2 decades of their lives. The usual onset is about age 9 to 13. These kids pull their hair and also do some nail biting to ease themselves up from any negative factors around them.

Those with trichotillomania have bald patches and show no hair loss pattern – the hair just seems to keep on disappearing. Some have angular borders that are difficult to ignore. Due to trauma, there is redness on the scalp and swelling. There are traces of bleeding out too. The most common area where hair is pulled out from is the crown.  Repetitive pulling of hair causes scarring and may lead to permanent hair loss.

Hair loss is reversible, meaning there is hope that hair will grow normally again. This happens when trichotillomania is checked and hair-pulling behavior is controlled. When this is successfully done, hair growth will return to its normal cycle and there will be healthier scalp or skin again.

Since trichotillomania patients use hair pulling as a form of distraction, there should be a distraction from this bad habit - one that can keep the person away from the impulse to pull hair in order to feel better. The choice for a new source of relief should not be in any way more harmful to the person.