Maggies Hair Pulling Blog

Over the last few years I have been using a hair forum to keep up to date with what's going on in the trich world: http://trich.co.uk/cgi-bin/uk-ttm-mb/discus.cgi The lady who runs it is called Louise, there is plenty of useful advice on it and I have made a few hair friends who I also now keep in contact with via text and the mighty facebook!! Forums are a good place to rant! If I ever feel like pulling then it helps to log on and have a little look around. Some people suffer a lot more than I do and so it's also nice to offer a few words of encouragement. Trich mentally drains you and although it doesn't stop me from having a relatively normal life, some people turn in to hermits and isolate themselves. This forum is for people in the UK and has different areas for different types of pulling. As well as hair pulling there is also eyebrow, eyelash, beard pulling etc. People pluck from all sorts of places!! The majority of pullers are female but you do get the odd man tha

It is now Wednesday and I haven't pulled a single hair in the past week!! I was out of the office today and had yesterday afternoon off work and so the routine of sitting at a desk all day has been slightly broken which helps. I have been determined this last week but I haven't had to fight off any really strong urges! Perhaps it really is the NAC (N-acetyl-cysteine) that is helping! I am taking 1200mg a day along with some vitamins, if I don't pull for a month then I KNOW it is this that is helping because in 20+ years I have never managed to not pull for that long. People with trich can often have good periods, but relapses are also common! Something will trigger a pulling session and then you could spend a good couple of hours plucking! Afterwards you always feel guilty and ashamed and know that you shouldn't have done it. The trouble with trich is that although you know you shouldn't, you really do have to pull!! It's very odd. Time for bed now, tiredness ma

Amazing! For the past 2 days I haven't pulled one hair, today is my third day of trying! I decided to try really hard a couple of days ago and I have been taking NAC for 10 weeks and so maybe it's a combination of these that is helping. I have managed pull free days before and so I am not over excited yet! It still feels good though. Last night I did have a couple of glasses of wine which has made me a it tired this morning! Tiredness is not good when you have trich so I will see how it makes me feel today. I am determined to keep going, grow hair grow............

Monday complete! Hair pulling wasn't too bad over the weekend. I had some long drives but managed to keep control. I still pulled a few but didn't have any zombie sessions! Went out drinking for a friends birthday on Saturday night. It's nice to go out now and have hair that is similar to other peoples!! Before I got the volumiser I always used to wear my hair up in a tight ponytail. Tomorrow I am going to try and not touch any hairs at all!!! Focus will be to pull none at all! :)

Weekend is nearly here! One more day in the office :) If I get an urge to touch my hair tomorrow I will try an exercise which involves tightening your fists for 2 mins. This uses hand muscles and apparently the urge can fade away! I will test it........

A few pics of my hair in August this year, I took them while having my volumiser adjusted and tightened. You normally have to have the whole thing taken off like this every 6 months. When they first take it off its like a tangled bird nest!! My boyfriend teases me that cockroaches will jump out of it! :) View from above, the top and front are still really thin! Side view, not doing too badly!

A few months ago a University student emailed me asking if I would take part in a short documentary on trichotillomania for her coursework. Her name was Jo, I said yes and so she came round to my house with a cameraman and list of questions. She found me via a hair forum along with a few others. We put a chair in the conservatory and practiced for a while before doing the real thing. I have never been filmed before and it’s amazing how self conscious it makes you feel, I made sure I wore black as apparently that makes you look thinner and noticed that I was purposefully pronouncing my t’s etc. Jo asked me how young I was when I started pulling, how it made me feel and what treatments I have looked into. We spoke a lot about Lucinda Ellery’s which is where I had my first volumiser fitted. Lucinda is the name of the lady that started the hair salon, she is a lovely bubbly lady, but unfortunately the cost of treatment just got too much there and so I had to leave. It was good to start wit

Oh dear, I have pulled quite a lot this weekend and I knew full well that I was doing it :( I have pulled a patch out on the right hand side that is about the size of a 50p, I will now have to wait for about 50 days before any new hairs grow back. The hair salon in Manchester suggested I get the volumiser net extended to cover the sides more and so I might have to do that! It always feels like failure if you have to get the net made bigger. I have read quite alot about hair growth and hairs don't just keep growing back forever! If you keep pulling them out, eventually they will stop growing and give up trying. The hair on the top of my head has been protected for the last 2 years by the volumiser but it is still very thin underneath. I fear that this hair may be damaged forever. My hair does try hard, but if I keep hurting it then eventually it will die. I must try hard this week to protect it!!!