Maggies Hair Pulling Blog

My Trichotillomania has now taken a major back seat! I still pull everyday and wear a permanent wig to cover up the bald patches. It's annoying to live with a hair hat 'thing' fixed to my head all the time and it gets itchy but I'm used to it so it has become normal. I can't imagine not wearing a wig now. My hair follicles have been permanently damaged by all the years of pulling so the hope of growing a full head of hair now is pretty slim. But I think I have accepted that and now trich doesn't really bother me. I used to get upset about it and frustrated but now I think there are more important things to worry about and l can still enjoy life without proper hair!! Some people have it a lot worse so out of all of the problems you can have as a human, I think hair pulling is a pretty mild one to have been dealt. Found out my mum as incurable cancer recently - this is a real problem. I would pull my arms and legs off, as well as all my hair out to fix her.

I have started tweeting about trich! Twitter is easy to access from my phone & I'm hoping it will help me control the urges. I can tweet instead of pull. I'm hoping that it will also help me connect with other sufferers. Tweet tweet twoo!! :) http://twitter.com/#!/MagMop

I have just had a telephone conversation with a lady who is making a documentary about Trich (she calls it TTM). She is working closely with Lucinda Ellery and I emailed her to let her know that I would be happy to speak to her over the phone about the condition. I wanted her to know that there are other salons out there. My worry is that people will think that Lucinda's is the only option when it isn't. The trouble with her place is the cost :( She is going to call again on Wednesday as it was only a brief chat today. She wanted to know what treatments I had tried, how old I was etc. the usual stuff! It's odd that I don't mind talking about it now, I used to be so scared!! I still need to make my plan for the year! Next weekend I am having the volumiser off and re-alligned. I hate it because I get to see how thin my real hair is!! :/

I have been trying to network and meet new people and yesterday I think I saw someone else with trich . I have joined a website for people who want to meet other people in real life! The idea is that you organise events amongst yourselves and yesterday I organised afternoon tea. One of the ladies who came along had dark hair which was long at the front but short and spiky on top, at first i didn't notice but she kept playing with it so it caught my attention. I obviously didn't mention it over the table but if i see her again I might do, not sure how though because I know people with trich are very shy! From my own experience I know that hair is the most touchy subject in the world if you have a problem with it and so I tread carefully!

As the end of 2009 comes creeping, I need to decide what my hair plan will be for next year. In 2009 I managed to find a new hair place to do my volumiser which was great! And I also managed to experiment with an amino acid supplement called N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC). At first I thought NAC was good but now I don't believe that it is a miracle cure. My pulling urges are the same as they ever were. Maybe next year I should go down the behavioural therapy route. The trouble is it costs so much. I once saw someone on the NHS but had to wait for 6 months and she wasn't very good. Private practices are better but they normally only work on weekdays and its tricky to find someone who has dealt with trich before. Often it is new for them and I end up being a bit of an experiment! I will need some kind of plan though as I don't want to give up. I have been trying to beat it for the last 4 years but so far no real joy. I know that I might not ever be able to stop but it seems so silly...