Trichotillomania is a condition where people feel the need to pull out their hair. It is a mental health disorder that usually starts in childhood or adolescence. Trichotillomania can last for several months or many years and may be worse at some times than others.
Causes of trichotillomania
your way of dealing with stress or anxiety. a chemical imbalance in the brain, similar to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) changes in hormone levels during puberty.
Signs and symptoms of trichotillomania often include: Repeatedly pulling your hair out, typically from your scalp, eyebrows or eyelashes, but sometimes from other body areas, and sites may vary over time. An increasing sense of tension before pulling, or when you try to resist pulling.
Trichotillomania (often abbreviated as TTM) is a mental health disorder where a person compulsively pulls out or breaks their own hair.
Trichotillomania Symptoms
Besides repeated hair pulling, other symptoms may include: Feeling tense before pulling hair or when trying to resist the urge to pull hair. Feeling relieved, satisfied, or pleased after acting on the impulse to pull hair. Distress or problems in their work or social life due to hair pulling.
While people on the autistic spectrum often have comorbid trichotillomania and other BFRBs, the reverse correlation does not appear to hold true, and no scientific evidence could be found indicating that autism causes trichotillomania.
Therapy can help people overcome trichotillomania. The most widely used type of therapy is called habit-reversal training (HRT). It's a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In this therapy, people meet with a therapist to learn skills to help them reverse the hair pulling habit.
Compulsive hair pulling or Trichotillomania, is an impulse control behaviour that is categorised under Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Related Disorders (OCD-R) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM5).
Results. SSRIs and clomipramine are considered first-line in TTM. In addition, family members of TTM patients are often affected by obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders. Other drugs used in the treatment of TTM are lamotrigine, olanzapine, N-Acetylcysteine, inositol, and naltrexone.
Compulsive and repetitive pulling out of hair, usually on the scalp. may pull out hair from their head, eyebrows, eyelashes, arms, or pubic region. It is slightly more common in women, but it affects individuals of all genders and all ages.
Vitamin D deficiency has been correlated with non-scarring alopecia including alopecia areata or female pattern hair loss. It was theorized that hair loss secondary to vitamin D deficiency in patients susceptible to trichotillomania may exacerbate this obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Some have argued that hair pulling in trichotillomania (TTM) is triggered by traumatic events, but reliable evidence linking trauma to TTM is limited. However, research has shown that hair pulling is associated with emotion regulation, suggesting a connection between negative affect and TTM.
Trichotillomania is an independent diagnosis but is highly comorbid, meaning it frequently occurs with other conditions. Anxiety and depression are the most common comorbidities, followed by ADHD.
Even though there is no cure for trichotillomania that has been devised, people that suffer from hair pulling can take comfort in knowing that there are several things they can do to work through the disorder.
The condition is more common in children ages 9–13 years than other age brackets. Older adolescents and teens with trichotillomania often experience increasingly severe symptoms the longer the condition is present.
Trichotillomania has been found to be associated with mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder. Trichotillomania has shared similarities with bipolar disorder by virtue of phenomenology, co-morbidity, and psychopharmacologic observations.
Trichotillomania itself has been considered a form of addiction, as those with trichotillomania may experience withdrawal or difficulty stopping hair-pulling behaviors.
Some doctors suggest tricks that make hair pulling more difficult, like wearing band-aids around their fingers. Kids who play with their hair after pulling it can also try carrying around other small objects to play with instead, like paperclips or erasers.
There are indications that trichotillomania occurs because of the gratification felt from the activity. Others may simply have the urge to do it. But, another possibility is your child may be pulling their hair to cope with stress or worry.
7], trichotillomania can be a significant disability among patients with different dementing illnesses and a challenge for clinicians to effectively treat it. We describe a dementia patient with intractable trichotillomania, review what is known about this association, and discuss the possible etiology.
If untreated, trichotillomania is a chronic illness that often results in substantial psychosocial dysfunction, and that can, in rare cases, lead to life-threatening medical problems.
So, is trichotillomania inherited? Yes, it can be, but other factors also contribute to the condition. As research and studies continue, understanding of the causes of trichotillomania and other mental health disorders will increase and improve prevention and treatment options.
Because the picking and pulling actually serve a purpose. This is why the behaviors can be so difficult to stop. A number of studies have found that some individuals with BFRBs have difficulty regulating their emotions.