TRICHOTILLOMANIA
Condition
Trichotillomania also known as hair-pulling disorder, is a mental disorder that involves periodical, uncontrollable urges to pull or twist their hair until it breaks and falls away. The potential targets are scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes or other areas of your body. A small percentage of people with the disorder also eat the hair they remove from their bodies. Most sufferers develop hair-pulling disorder as a teenagers and young adults and it’s affects female more often then men. Hair pulling from the scalp often leaves patchy bald spots, which causes big stress and can destroy social life. Some people have a mild level of this disorder and generally manageable, for the others – it is totally overwhelming.
Symptoms
‘’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
-A sense of pleasure or relief after the hair is pulled
-Noticeable hair loss, such as shortened hair or thinned or bald areas on the scalp or other areas of your body, including sparse or missing eyelashes or eyebrows
-Preference for specific types of hair, rituals that accompany hair pulling or patterns of hair pulling
-Biting, chewing or eating pulled-out hair
-Playing with pulled-out hair or rubbing it across your lips or face
-Repeatedly trying to stop pulling out your hair or trying to do it less often without success
-Significant distress or problems at work, school or in social situations related to pulling out your hair.’’ (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2016).
There is also combine form of trichotillomania, less common, when people pick their skin, bite their nails or chew their lips. Sometimes pulling hairs from pets or dolls or from other materials, like blankets or clothes, may be a sign.
Causes
This complex disorder is results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors:
-Family history, the disorder can occur to close relative with the same problem. That mean trichotillomania could be inherited;
-Age, between the ages of 10 to 13 years – and it’s often a lifelong problem;
-Other disorders, such as depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD);
-Stress. Very stressful situations may start this disorder.
There some possible complications of trichotillomania:
-Depression, anxiety and as result – alcohol or street drug;
-Social problem, embarrassment;
-Damage of hair and skin;
-Hairballs.
Prognosis
Professionals may not know how to treat trichotillomania effectively, mostly because people to embarrassment to admit the problem. The prognosis is good if you accept the fact that you have a problem that can’t be correct alone. Behavior therapy has reported long-term success.
Treatment
‘’Currently, most people with trichotillomania are treated with psychotherapy or antidepressants, including selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), like Prozas, but in recent years, four studies that looked at SSRIs in the treatment of trichotillomania showed they are not effective in relieving the conditions. (Indeed, there is an emerging debate about the limitations of SSRIs, which received enormous media exposure in the 90’s and have become the go-to drug to treat not only depression but, with varying success, anxiety, nicotine addiction, body-image problems, bipolar disorder, psychosis and a host of other mental disorders.) While there’s been less research on drug that manipulate glutamate-perhaps because it can be modulated fairly, easily with nonprescription amino acids like N-acetylcysteine – the new study suggests the neurotransmitter may play a key role not only in the rare condition of hair-pulling, but also in other obsessive-compulsive disorders’’ (Cloud, J. 2009)
Famous People with Trichotillomania
There are many famous people are suffering from trichotillomania. ‘’Suffers must try to lessen the stress in their everyday life, in order to begin recovering from this disorder, trichotillomania is not discriminate, anyone could suffer from this disorder.’’ (Famous People with Trichotillomania, 2014). Here the list of famous people who suffer from this devastating condition:
-Megan Fox,
– Charlize Theron,
-Justin Timberlake,
-Victoria Beckham,
-Katy Perry,
-Naomi Campbell,
-Kate Beckinsale,
-Olivia Munn.
There are just some of the famous people with trichotillomania, but they did not allow their condition to control their life. Trichotillomania can be treated with enough support from the family and friends of the sufferer, dealing with this condition can be much easier.