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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 17 of 17. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
Last time I tried to post about this, I didn't get many responses....some said maybe b/c I didn't post enough to other people. I'm sorry :(
I try, but lots of times feel like it's not very good so have to delete...and sometimes it's just hard to read everything to check if somebody already said what I want to. Somebody said maybe it's b/c ppl dont' know much about it. I don't care. I just want something that might help.I started pulling from just armpits last summer. That was ok b/c i don't like hair there anyway. in the past couple months, i started occasionally pulling from my head. Recently, I'm pulling from head a lot and it's starting to get scary and really uncontrollable. I don't want bald spots like I've seen some people online.
I told pdoc and we upped my celexa to 40mg a month or so ago(dont' know if it's helping...don't think so). T told me before to try to comfort myself...I try but not working. T's away this week :(
I need help. Any ideas??
Posted by LadyBug on February 18, 2009, at 23:39:41
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
I've seen this in a few people though I'm not aware of any treatment. I'm sure it's got a name to it. I wish I could offer some support but the only thing that comes to my mind is to do a search on google and see if you can research it and come up with any kind of solutions that way. I pick my cuticles, I've done it since I was small and as long as I can remember. I'm sure it's a nervous habit simular to pulling hair.
I don't even know I'm doing it most the time. If I wear nails, it stops me from doing it for the most part so it's worth it to me.
Next time you are doing it, try to think of what you are worried about and see if you have anxiety going on inside.
There has to be a solution or some kind of work you can do to overcome this. Do a google search and see what you can learn about it.
LadyBug
Posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:54:21
In reply to Re: Hair pulling :( Support please » no_rose_garden, posted by LadyBug on February 18, 2009, at 23:39:41
Thanks ladybug...it's called trichotillomania. I may not have it all the way though, but I feel like it's getting worse with time, so I want to stop it before it gets really bad.
The only treatments that I've seen are SSRIs (i'm on) and CBT...but neither seem to work too well.
Posted by wittgensteinz on February 19, 2009, at 5:08:14
In reply to Re: Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:54:21
No Rose,
I don't think the lack of responses the last time is because 'you don't support others enough' - I hadn't had that impression about you in any case. I think it could be that unfortunately there are few or no active posters on this forum who are dealing with these issues. That said, maybe those dealing with other compulsions of some kind or another might be able to offer general suggestions as to how best to deal with them.
I can imagine this must be very distressing for you - and scary. I took Celexa for over a year (for depression) and I never noticed any benefits - I took 60mg. It can be that this AD doesn't suit/help you either - or that it could be supplemented by an additional AD (I'm no pdoc, just wanted to say that not everyone responds to every AD and sometimes it takes a while to find the right one).
There have been studies into the medical treatment of trichotillomania. They found that SSRI's offer no significant improvements (Celexa is an SSRI). However, they did find that Clomipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant, offered signifiant improvement. Maybe you can discuss with pdoc the option of tricyclic antidepressants. I've also read that some ADs can make the problem WORSE - that's something important to be aware of.
It's good you have been able to bring this up with your pdoc and therapist - last time you posted hadn't spoken to them - I see this as a positive step. Have you been able to express how worried you are about these behaviours? How much of the therapy is focusing on helping you with this? Is there more that can be done within therapy to tackle the problem? CBT is the obvious method I guess but maybe there is some underlying 'cause' at the root of the problem that if uncovered could take the need away (maybe I'm thinking wishfully).
I wonder whether there are support groups specifically for those with trichotillomania?
With a quick search I come across this site: http://www.trichotillomania.co.uk/ (no idea how reliable/good it is but they have a lot of resources)
Hope this helps.
Witti
Posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 6:39:17
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
> Last time I tried to post about this, I didn't get many responses....some said maybe b/c I didn't post enough to other people.
That's silly!
:-)
Perhaps people had no idea what kind of feedback to give you. Trichotillomania is not a condition seen very often here. Whatever the reasons - if there were any reasons at all, it had absolutely nothing to do with prior your posting habits.
Do you pull only when you feel stressed in your life, or, rather, does the anxiety build up gradually as you think about pulling until you need to relieve the anxiety?
Trichotillomania is a neglected psychiatric disorder, and there is no hard evidence that any drug works to help ameliorate it. There are a few anecdotes that indicate the following drugs might be useful.
Lamictal
Seroquel
Depakote.
Luvox
AnafranilI think Lexapro would be better than Celexa. It is a more pure and potent SSRI.
You can also head in the direction of taking an opioid receptor antagonist like naltrexone. These drugs prevent the "reward" sensation of pulling. This is my idea. Eventually the habit should extinguish at least partially if not completely. You are going to have to do some psychotherapeutic and behavioral work specific to trichotillomania, though.
Anyway, you do have people here who support you and hope you can find relief.
- Scott
Posted by sharon7 on February 19, 2009, at 7:27:58
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
Good morning, rose. (o:
I am sure sorry you are having this struggle.
I'm sorry when you reached out for help (here) in the past you did not get many responses. How courageous of you to try again. Responses to your posts should not be contingent upon how many threads you have or have not replied to. I have worried about the same thing, though, to be honest. Often I feel I have nothing to add, can't relate, or like you, don't want to repeat what's already been said. I think maybe here's the thing. Hopefully people are not only looking for advice from someone who's "been there, done that," but simply to be heard. Just to know someone cared enough to read what you had to say. I read lots of posts I don't comment on (for the reasons we have bothe mentioned,) but perhaps the thing to do is, just to let that person know you read their post, you sympathize, and wish them the best. Even that would go a long way. It would with me anyway. You can even just reply and click the 'no message' thing and give the person a (((((person))))).
SOOOOOO, that's what I'm doing here, rose. I have no experience with hair pulling (I'm not even going to TRY and spell the medical name for it!) lol! I agree with the others who said go online (although you probably have already) and research the condition and what others have done to cope with it. On the surface, it sounds like nerves and stress. I wish I could offer some alternatives to you. I could try. I think your T is right about it being a way you comfort yourself. Isn't it odd how the things we use for comfort are so harmful to us? The opposite of comfort. Go figure? Perhaps you are feeling particularly in need of comfort because of things you are addressing in therapy? Or maybe cuz you aren't seeing your T this week? It could be a combination of things. We are going to need comfort for the rest of our lives. Some of us more than others. It does behoove us to learn less self-destructive means of obtaining comfort for ourselves, and I know that's tough. When our source(s) of comfort is/are external, meaning we rely on another individual for that comfort, when they can't or don't deliver for whatever reason, we have nothing to fall back on except those things we "think" make us feel better (or we wouldn't do them,) but are actually destroying us. I have found this site to be very cathartic. It is still kind of depending on someone else to validate you, though, so still basically an external source of comfort, but even if you are not validated, just writing your feelings down can be therapuetic. AND, while you are typing, makes it kind of hard to pull your hair, just as it prevents me from engaging in some of my own self-destructive behavior that requires the uses of my hands. (o:
I hope you have a good day. I'm glad you shared. I wish you well with this. You can get better. Don't give up. Keep looking for support wherever you can get it. Go to other doctors if you need to and if that's an option. Learn all you can about this condition and what others so afflicted have done to stop. Take care.
Sharon
Posted by sassyfrancesca on February 19, 2009, at 7:44:38
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
Hi; just ran across a book called: "The hair pulling habit and you: How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle" by Sherrie mansfield Vavrichek
Perhaps this might be of value?
hugs, Sassy
Posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 8:10:31
In reply to Re: 'How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle', posted by sassyfrancesca on February 19, 2009, at 7:44:38
> Hi; just ran across a book called: "The hair pulling habit and you: How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle" by Sherrie mansfield Vavrichek
>
> Perhaps this might be of value?
>
> hugs, Sassy
Hi Francesca.Wanna see something cool?
If you type out the title of a book and surround it with DOUBLE quotation marks ("), it creates a link that brings you to a search result page on Amazon. The double quotes disappear.
"How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle""
- Scott
Posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 8:12:14
In reply to Re: 'How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle' » sassyfrancesca, posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 8:10:31
Oops.
I only used a single quote at the beginning. This should work:
"How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle"
- Scott
Posted by backseatdriver on February 19, 2009, at 10:34:55
In reply to Oops - Double quotes for Amazon searches, posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 8:12:14
Trichotillomania is tough. I have a smudge of it - enough to make me self-conscious. I think there is a spectrum to this problem - one can do it a little or a lot or somewhere in between. I found that SSRIs -- eg 50-75 mg Zoloft daily --- didn't help nearly enough to justify the side effects.
What has helped me most is identifying triggers. What are you feeling or thinking or experiencing *just before* the urge hits you?
I have found that trigger identification is really hard work. I keep a notebook and pencil handy, to write down the date and time of the "urge" and hopefully to record what I was experiencing at that moment.
Sometimes even *noticing* our own experience is hugely difficult. Growing up, I was trained NOT to be aware of what was happening around me or inside me. Psychotherapy helps with learning to notice things going on inside.
For instance I recently discovered that one of my triggers -- this was astonishing to me -- is throwing out food, which I have been doing quite a bit for the past few years, because I have a small child who is quite sensitive to taste and smell.
My trigger started here: I was raised in a very guilty household where the "starving children of Africa" were more on my mother's mind than the affection-starved kid right in front of her nose. It is hard to throw away food when there is an inner disapproving mother looking on. To assuage my guilt, which is really awful and completely out of proportion to the amount of food thrown away, I feel like picking and tweezing. Pulling out my "badness" a little at a time makes up for failing to ingest all of my mother's "good" food. Of course I did not fail to "ingest" her ideas about me, even if I did leave food on my plate. Needless to say therapy helps a lot here, too.
Yours,
BSD
Posted by catlady on February 19, 2009, at 10:36:22
In reply to Re: 'How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle', posted by sassyfrancesca on February 19, 2009, at 7:44:38
There is a website called www.trich.org that might help you. I hope this helps.
Posted by catlady on February 19, 2009, at 10:40:16
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
Sorry. This is for you no rose garden. I'm new at this.
Posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 11:03:07
In reply to Re: Hair pulling :( Support please » no_rose_garden, posted by catlady on February 19, 2009, at 10:40:16
> Sorry. This is for you no rose garden. I'm new at this.
I still make the mistake of directing a post to the wrong party, and I've been here for 9 years.
OMG
Where do the decades go?
Just in case you weren't formally welcomed, WELCOME.
- Scott
Posted by Phillipa on February 19, 2009, at 13:15:42
In reply to Re: Hair pulling :( Support please » catlady, posted by SLS on February 19, 2009, at 11:03:07
I do the cuticle ripping and pulling low dose luvox scared to up it what would happen another failure? Phillipa
Posted by no_rose_garden on February 20, 2009, at 1:07:46
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
I was so touched to see so many responses :)
I will try to see how I'm feeling before I start pulling. Hard to say right now.
I think maybe T being away has contributed to an increase this week...not sure though. It's hard knowing he's so far away. I look forward to him coming back Sunday :) Then when I see him next week I think i'll bring up that it's gotten worse. (((T)))
Posted by lucie lu on February 20, 2009, at 11:21:08
In reply to Hair pulling :( Support please, posted by no_rose_garden on February 18, 2009, at 23:24:58
NRG,
Other than the A/Ds, have you and your T looked at issues related to anxiety? A friend of my daughter's was pulling out her eyebrows, a behavior that was largely driven by intense unhappiness and anxiety at her school. She's an older teen, and she only had about 1/3 of her eyebrows left! She was able to change schools and as her anxiety dropped, she was able to stop the behavior as well. It seems to me that the physiological "secondary gain" of the behavior may be similar to that of "cutting," i.e. a temporary release of endorphins. I'm sure that is what Scott was thinking too with the suggestion of naloxone.
I'm sorry for what you are going through, and hope that you and your T will find something that will help. I'm also sorry that you felt not responded to previously. I don't think anyone here "keeps score" about whether someone has a pattern of replying or not. People, even regular posters, come and go, post or not, depending upon what is happening with them IRL. And anyway, responding to a post can be just as gratifying as putting one out there to be responded to. So responses need not be considered "paybacks." People tend to respond when they feel they have something to say or even just support to offer. So if there are few responses, ansd you really need one, then rephrasing and trying again is often successful. Just as you did, and good for you for trying again.
Good luck,
Lucie
Posted by no_rose_garden on February 20, 2009, at 21:08:23
In reply to Re: Hair pulling :( Support please » no_rose_garden, posted by lucie lu on February 20, 2009, at 11:21:08
Thanks lucie. I haven't talked about it w/ T much....it only recently started getting really out of control. I do have a lot of anxiety...so I guess that's probably part of it. *sigh*
It felt really nice hearing you support me trying to post again too. Thanks :)
PS I wore a hat yesterday...that helped a little
This is the end of the thread.
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