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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Wednesday morning, on 9/21, I cut off all of my hair extensions.  I decided to go back to being bald for awhile.  I kind of missed having a shaved head, since I’m one of the few girls it seems to look good on.  I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on it already!

I had mixed feelings during the process.  Halfway through, I struggled, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking back to all of the times in the past when I’ve shaved my head because I HAD to.  I didn’t “have” to this time, although after cutting the extensions off I never would have been happy with the short hair underneath.  So in a way, all of the old feelings of failure came back while I was doing this.

But I’ve decided that since there seem to be no more interruptions in my treatment in sight, I’m going to give it all I’ve got, with a big push and instead of having the temptation right in front of me and struggling the whole way, I would simply remove the temptation and make things easier for myself.  Now, my plan is to keep the hairstyle for a few months until the bald patches fill in, go forth with my CBT training plan, and hopefully begin to grow the hair by Jan or Feb.

I have also decided to try giving medication another shot, because recently, in the last several months I have developed another repulsive behavior… Dermotillomania .. it started with scratching my scalp because there was dandruff… I would look for this under my fingernails afterwards and eat it afterwards.  Then I began causing sores because of the intensity in which I was scratching, and that soon led to searching for scabs, pulling them off, and eating them.  Never in my life have I had this problem, and I am 29 years old right now.  The fact that at this age, I have developed this kind of problem, signifies to me that my obsessive grooming issues are only getting worse, and that medication is not only a good idea, but could be necessary at this point. I  am causing more self-harm than ever before, and I haven’t been able to get on top of it even with psychotherapy.  I’ve also had to remove my acrylic nails for work over the last few months, and my nail-biting has become quite extreme again.  So, I am going to try and work on all of these issues at once, with the help of my wonderful therapist.

And so I am meeting with my doctor on Tuesday to discuss a treatment plan and decide what medication to try next…. now that I’m no longer in a close relationship, the sexual side effects of the antidepressants won’t bother me … in fact, having a lower sex drive might actually be a GOOD thing for me right now, since I’m not in a relationship.

That is all for now… I hope to begin writing in here regularly again to keep track of my progress.

Tags: pull diary, cognitive behavioral therapy, anti-depressants, dermotillomania, skin picking, nail biting, trichotillomania, ocd, bald spots, trichster, trich by Isis
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not having any fingernails is NOT very comfortable …  and is a huge pain in the ass, not to mention looks awful.

nails = good

Tags: nail biting, ocd by Isis
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This was my FIRST entry on sanitywarp.org:

I have decided to better document my ongoing struggle with trichotillomania… and I decided to do it somewhat
publically so that others out there with this problem will know that they are not alone. When I first developed this
devastating disorder, I did not know why I started doing this to myself, and it wasn’t until years later (after
reading information and going to a seminar with my Mom) that I found out that approximately 2% of the entire population has trichotillomania. This number is small in comparison to the other 98% of the population, but HUGE in terms of understanding that there are LOTS of other people out there who have it! Still though, in my entire lifetime, I have only come across 1 other person that I personally knew to have this disorder; a friend’s husband who pulls at his
beard and head. I am sure at some point I must have crossed paths with more, but since it is often easy to hide
(especially with longer hair that can be tied up to cover missing patches of hair), sadly I have never truly connected
with anyone else about TTM yet.

I am now 25 and I have been struggling with this for almomt half of my lifetime. I’ve tried so many different things,
and I have most recently decided to try persciption medication as somewhat of a last resort. I am also going to
try finding a good hypnotherapist as another desperate attempt to help me stop doing this, but I have begun to
think lately that perhaps nothing will ever truly help in the end… at this point, I’ve had it for so long, how COULD
something like a perscription drug, or a hypnotist correct behavior that is over a decade old??

My head is sore from all of the pulling today. I’ve been going pretty nonstop since about 11am this morning, when I
got to work. I must have pulled out hundreds of strands by now, 7:30pm, and I am still doing it now. The whole top of
my head is bare or filling in with wispy hairs from previous episodes, and I’m starting to feel like I just won’t stop
until there is nothing left to pull =( I am getting very depressed about this yet I can’t stop doing it. I do not
think that the dulexodine has helped at all yet, although it has helped some of my (mild) OCD symptoms, which has been
nice. It has been almost 2 months on 60mg dosage (was taking 120 for awhile but I think the switch happened too
fast, as my body did not react well to it at all, resulting in me going back down to 60mg).

I really should get up and do some of the cleaning I meant to start on 3 hours ago. yet again has my time been stolen
away from me while I sit in a trance…

I was contemplating cutting the tips of my forefinger and thumb with a razorblade today…. so that I would not be
able to pull… I am starting to think it might be worth a shot…

le sigh.. =(

Tags: depression, ocd, alternative healing, hypnotherapy, seminar, trich, ttm, trichotillomania, medication 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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