There are several mental health conditions that a person is much more likely to have along with TTM. These can happen either as separate conditions or because of TTM (especially anxiety and depression). These include: OCD (this condition is a common misdiagnosis for people who, in reality, have TTM).
Other conditions, such as depression, anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may occur along with trichotillomania. Stress. Severely stressful situations or events may trigger trichotillomania in some people.
Individuals may be misdiagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an anxiety disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, or even drug addiction.
Causes of trichotillomania
your way of dealing with stress or anxiety. a chemical imbalance in the brain. changes in hormone levels during puberty. genetic - more than one person in a family may have the condition.
The cause of trichotillomania is not clearly understood but is believed to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Imbalances in the natural brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine may also contribute to this impulse control disorder.
Trichotillomania Triggered by Vitamin D Deficiency and Resolving Dramatically With Vitamin D Therapy.
Recently, a strong relationship of family chaos during childhood and trichotillomania has also been reported, in which 86% of women with trichotillomania reported a history of violence—for example, sexual assault or rape—concurrent with the onset of trichotillomania.
Habit reversal training.
This behavior therapy is the main treatment for trichotillomania. You learn how to recognize situations where you're likely to pull out your hair and how to substitute other behaviors instead. For example, you might clench your fists to help stop the urge.
Trichotillomania impacts adults and children. 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. Hair pulling is a compulsive behavior driven by anxiety.
Don't say, “You need to learn to relax, and maybe the pulling will stop automatically.” Usually, this isn't true. My clients with trich have hairpulling on their mind constantly (which can be mentally exhausting) and have uncontrollable urges to pull.
Adults with trichotillomania frequently report that their pulling worsens during periods of heightened anxiety [9]. Alternatively, hair pulling for many adults leads to avoidance of social activities and results in anxiety during intimate situations [6], [10], [11].
Trichotillomania (TTM), also known as hair-pulling disorder or compulsive hair pulling, is a mental disorder characterized by a long-term urge that results in the pulling out of one's own hair.
Based on prior studies, we can conclude that the most common comorbid conditions in TTM are depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, other grooming disorders (e.g., SPD), and substance use disorders [12,13,17,[23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34]].
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.
“Don't Look Up” actor Leonardo DiCaprio is believed to have trichotillomania due to openly sharing on multiple accounts of suffering from OCD. Leo has spoken about living with OCD throughout his childhood and adult life.
Adults with trichotillomania have elevated rates of co-occurring disorders, most commonly depression (52% to 60%) (Christen et al., 1991; Hand et al., 1996; Houghton et al., 2016) and anxiety disorders (60%) (Hand et al., 1996).
Children commonly pull their hair in this way, but that behavior is often a self-soothing act. Children often grow out of this behavior and don't have any long-term negative effects. Adolescents, teenagers and adults with this condition tend to have much more severe problems.
If you live with trichotillomania, you may have other mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Stress. Extreme stress may trigger trichotillomania in some people.
Q: Is hair-pulling in babies a symptom of autism? A: While hair-pulling is a behavior often exhibited by children on the spectrum, if your baby is pulling hair, it does not mean that your child has autism.
In addition to reducing the urge to pull, it is believed vitamin D supplementation significantly improved hair regrowth, which is often not seen after treatment with antidepressants or other medications alone. Studies have identified the use of vitamin D3 analogs to stimulate hair regrowth.
Each time the person pulls hair, the brain releases a small burst of reward hormone. The person feels 'rewarded' with a brief sense of relief. This makes the urge harder to resist. Doing the habit makes it stronger.
How To Treat Trichotillomania? Trichotillomania is a body focused repetitive behavior and requires therapy to overcome it. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is considered the gold standard of therapy to treat trichotillomania.
Trichotillomania is a disorder characterized by chronic hair pulling that often results in alopecia. Eating the part of hair pulled out is a common practice and trichorhizophagia is a new term to denote the habit of eating the root of hairs pulled out, associated with trichotillomania.
Other imaging studies of trichotillomania reported reduced gray matter in the left inferior frontal gyrus23 and reduced cerebellar volumes. More recently, whole-brain analysis identified increased gray matter densities in the left caudate/putamen, bilateral cingulate, and right frontal cortices.