Sanitywarp.org:: Diary of a Trichster

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking with my doctor about trying medication (again) for my severe trichotillomania, which has been persisting since age 14.  (I am now about to turn 30, so this has been going on over half my life.)  In the past I tried Cymbalta, and Zoloft, and Naltrexone.  After 4 months on Cymbalta, I didn’t notice much of a reduction in my pulling urges, or in my OCD symptoms, either.  So I discontinued that.  Discouraged, I didn’t try another medication until last year, when I tried Zoloft.  After a few months of this, I didn’t like the sexual dysfunction side effects and discontinued that medication as well - I was not seeing any benefit from this medication either.   I gave Naltrexone a shot for 3 months and didn’t notice any improvement with that either.

I have been doing Cognitive Behavior Therapy for 1.5 years now - it shouldn’t have been for this long, but I had several interruptions in the treatment (changing of doctors due to them leaving, going on pregnancy leave, etc)

At this point in time I feel that I’ve somewhat exhausted some of the CBT methods to the point where they aren’t as meaningful, so I am going to try the combination of CBT and medicine now.

After reviewing more choices, my choice now seems to lie between Clomipramine (which seems to have show the highest success rate for Trich) and Welbutrin, which has also been shown to be effective for some.  I’ve been going back and forth between these 2 for some time.  It’s hard to decide … I’d like to go for the Clomipramine because of it’s documented success rate - however, I have other additional problems as well, including anxiety, attention deficit disorder and depression - all of which Welbutrin can impact positively.  The clomipramine focuses solely on the OCD-like symptoms… less on the depression and concentration issues.

Then again, do I really want to be on one of these long-term?  I feel as if I don’t, but the attention issues are certainly a problem that will persist for some time.  If the Welbutrin does help with that, then perhaps I would want to continue taking it for at least a few years.  The clomipramine I’d be more likely to want to discontinue sooner, probably.  My OCD symptoms alone aren’t bothersome enough to really interfere in my life, but I am skeptical that a year on medication and some CBT will cure a life-long problem.  So then.. perhaps it WOULD be better to stay on a medication long-term (a few years)… and if so, it might as well be one that’s beneficial in other ways…  like the Welbutrin.

The sexual side effects, well… I’ve decided that this time.. that’s not worth it.  A few years ago I was younger and that sort of thing seemed more important … orgasms were something I refused to give up then.   This happens to be a good time to try again though, because I am not in a relationship, for the first time in awhile… so I feel that any sexual dysfunction now wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

So then.. I guess the decision has been made… I hope it is a good one.  I will begin on Welbutrin (Bupropion) .. 100mg… today. At the moment I am still with a shaved head to avoid all temptation of pulling.  In a few months, the bald spots currently present, should be filling in… and by then, hopefully the medication and the CBT will be working well.

I hope this will help me…   here goes.

Tags: cognitive behavioral therapy, trichster, zoloft, naltrexone, welbutrin, clomipramine, ocd, depression, medication, cymbalta, trich, ttm, trichotillomania, Uncategorized by Isis
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well, it’s been a month now since I started cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).I am sad to say that I don’t see much of a difference yet.  My awareness has been increased a bit, but it has gotten no easier to stop the behavior, despite coming up with a list of incompatible behaviors (putting a hat or gloves on, clasping hands, moving around, etc) … the urge is just too strong for any of that to work.

so, I am taking the plunge and trying medication to go along with the CBT, which is the most successful way of going about this…….I am not sure which medication will be tried first, but I am sure there will be a period of unpleasant trial and error, and I’m sure I’m not going to like the side effects of whatever SSRI I am taking… but… at this point, I am willing to sacrifice other things (like my sexual functionality, which is what the Cymbalta / Duloxetine messed with when I tried it, and the main reason I stopped taking it) to try and conquer this…  if there’s any time to really try medication again, it’s right now.. I seem to have no other choice.  It’s becoming incredibly difficult and frustrating to hide my scalp, which is at least 50% bare, especially from my significant other.  It actually distresses me quite a lot when he wants to spend the night with me now, because it’s extremely uncomfortable to sleep with clip-on extensions (they pull at the hair I do have, making my scalp very sore in the morning)  aside from the fact that the hair is all gross and poor quality now because of sleeping on it so often.  I like seeing him but I find myself wishing he didn’t call me so much, just because of the hair thing…  *sigh* I should be happy to spend time with him =(

I had a massive session just now while writing a final paper for school.  It was just awful… I couldn’t stop.  I even pulled my pubic hair (after I tried putting on a hat, the trich monster just moved along somewhere else) for over 20 minutes which is something I haven’t done in a REALLY long time.  :(

I did dye my roots last night in hopes I won’t get stuck in the mirror pulling all my numerous amounts of grays anymore….

I really hope I can get better.  :(

I will update as things progress..

Tags: school stress, pulling at night, pulling at desk, follicle biting, peer pressure, embarrassment, mgh trich clinic boston, pubic area, significant other, anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy, treatmeant, restlessness, white hair, trich, ttm, medication, stress, cymbalta, hair extensions, trichotillomania, bald spots, crown, pulling from scalp, pulling, depression, duloxetine by Isis
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nothing much new, although today and yesterday I was pulling more than I have been lately. maybe that’s because I got drunk the night before.. I dunno. I wish I could keep listening to my hypnotism tapes, but I’m so afraid of them getting destroyed/eaten by the players. I need to just…. get that stuff onto my computer so I don’t ever have to worry about it. hmm…. back when I lived with my parents, wayyy back in the day, I borrowed a tape deck from my dad and hooked it up, somehow. That’s how I used to record my vocals for my music back then. if I could just remember how I did that, now…. lol. *scratches head*….

so anyway, as I thought…. I’m definetely not doing as well now without the extensions in place to cover up the hair so I can’t get at it. =/ I STILL have not found anyone in Boston to take care of it for me, yet, although a co-worker of mine says she may know someone who’s dad owns a salon. At this point I’m willing to settle for something very basic, just in the interest of preserving the few spots that do have long hair right now. I’d say maybe around 30-35% is grown in at the moment…

the fuckin assistant from Dr. Doherty’s office called me today and left a message, guess she’s trying to check up on me? Gee, thanks, almost 2 weeks later. I was calling them repeatedly because I was very concerned about how awful I felt after I went off the cymbalta/duloxetine …. I was basically begging them to set me up with a blood test or something, just to make sure I was ok, because I was so sick for about 4 weeks I thought there was something seriously wrong with me.  They gave me a run-around about it and basically didn’t do anything to try and set that up even after I started getting angry and coming close to threatening legal action.  Thankfully at this point, thank GOD, I seem to be getting better. I was seriously worried about it… and they didn’t seem to care all that much. The doctor didn’t even call me back himself!! I’ll never be doing a med trial at MGH again. They don’t even care about their patients when its just an experiment, it seems. nice indeed.

anyways, that’s about it for now I guess. I’ve been thinking of adding some more content to this blog, like maybe a review list of products that I’ve used that seemed to help, or didn’t help… etc. I will also be expanding the links section when I have the time, to share some of the websites I have found useful.

Goodnight.

Tags: pulling, trichotillomania, pulling from scalp, bald spots, crown, hair extensions, ttm, cymbalta, medication, side effects, trich, duloxetine by Isis
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This post was taken from a previous journal, before I decided to make this journal solely dedicated to TTM:

The extensions I got in May (2 months ago) are on their last legs unfortunately.. I’ve been frantically trying to preserve what’s left for just a couple more weeks while I try desperately to find someone that can do new ones for me… for uhh, less than fuckin $500, which is what the Hair Police want. =( fuckin sucks.. a lot. I was really excited to maybe get them done by those guys since I’ve heard good things about them, have seen their work, and have seen them mentioned on other trich pages before. But that is a fuckton of money…and they don’t even have wool type material (which was surprising in itself), on top of that, they want me to pay that much for a couple hours worth of work?? (When I went to Rae at Hair Alchemy, she did it in 2 hours and I had twice as much hair then) so…. I only have about 30% of my hair left at all, which obviously would mean a lot less material than they’d normally use…. and that’s not going to affect the cost apparently? umm… no.. can’t go that route then, just cuz they’ve done a lot of business for themselves I really can’t justify $500 for such a little amount of hair. =( I’m really hoping my only other option isn’t to have to get back on a plane and go back to Chicago, (her studio is Hair Alchemy and she did an amazing job, I would def recommend her to anyone in the Chicago area!) cuz that will end up being almost just as expensive… but I may have to =( humph. Oh well… Chris wants to visit Chicago sometime.. he’d go with me at least…

The hair situation has been really bad lately, I think I’ve gotten worse at controlling myself. I think I may start up a trich diary on a new site, just to talk about my struggle with TTM. I wonder if I should move it to blogger or something… someplace where it might actually turn up in a search engine someday if some other poor trich sufferer is looking for something… I think I might be brave enough to post pictures too…eventually. sigh… yeah, every time one of the extensions falls out, it opens up a new patch of hair that I get rid of with like, an intense ferocity. I’m pretty sure that if I don’t get some more extensions fairly soon, I’m going to end up pulling out ALL of it, even the stuff I usually never touch at all, which I’ve been doing. =( so much of my hair is white now because of this. I’m probably getting close to the point of doing permanent damage now… I mean shit, it’s been 8 fucking years man. 8 years… that’s almost 10… almost a whole decade. The dulexotine I’ve been taking has seemed to improved my OCD symptoms a bit, which I am grateful for… but it’s done nothing for the trich yet, unfortunately. I pulled so much out just last night and my head is so fucking sore. I suppose I *should* take pictures of it now while it looks so awful.. I used to look at trich pictures and think, well… “at least I don’t have it THAT bad”… seeing people 70-80% bald from it… well, now I do have it that bad and I have for a little while now. I really do think I’ll end up pulling all of it out soon if I don’t get a fuckin grip on myself.

Tags: hair alchemy, trichotillomania, ocd, pulling, hair extensions, ttm, cymbalta, medication, trich, duloxetine by Isis
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(this entry was taken from a previous journal, before I made this one:)

10pm -just when things were starting to look better… =/
that horrible pain in my stomach is back.* it’s been crippling me for several hours and I can only pray it doesn’t stay long…
my left eyebrow is entirely gone from just the last few hours, and I have 2 new spots on my head. FUCK man.
I guess this shit has to happen because my life is about to get better…. was all excited and shit for all the things that are going down… new job loc… maybe moving back home with my boy…

god this fuckin hurts =/
*sigh*

10:30pm: and now the right one is gone…
was kinda wondering when the next time would be when I’d have nothing there again for awhile….=(

* - this had previously been a bothersome condition of my stomach a few times in the distant past - but I later found out it was a result (they like to call it a “side effect”) of taking the duloxetine / cymbalta!!!

Tags: medication, side effects, stress, eyebrows, cymbalta, duloxetine by Isis
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