I remember when I told this story to my son’s therapist and her comment was only you would find the cure to your son’s Tric online.  I started working in Philadelphia and concurrently my son started pulling his hair out of his head – literally.  It did not matter that I was home most days much earlier than I ever was before, we started finding clumps of hair on the floor.   The teachers saw it too.  We knew nothing about Trichotillomania – not even that is what it was called.  All we knew is Robbie was stressed and it was causing him to look like he was going through chemo.  What we found out was that Trichotillomania is also known as compulsive hair pulling. It apparently has some genetic basis but since Robbie is adopted, we did not know of any. Pleasure, gratification, or relief is normally felt when pulling out the hair.  I purchased  The Hair Pulling “Habit” and You: How to Solve the Trichotillomania Puzzle, Revised Edition from Amazon and it was very helpful for the doctors and his therapists.  Some of it is a workbook that helped both Robbie and I understand that per Robbie it feels “good” when it is pulled.  It is most commonly pulled during downtime for him like: Watching TV • Lying in bed • Sitting at the computer • Sitting at a stop light • Reading a book.  Robbie did it while playing on the computer or in school when trying to focus.  Stress increases the pulling.  It is considered an obsessive-compulsive disorder. We went to the therapist, the neurologist and his pediatrician and was told it bothered us more than it bothered him.  After a while we would tell him when we saw him pulling we would tell him to stop.  It got to the point where we were all upset with each other.  Then, we started giving him items to do instead of pulling.  Stress did not seem to be the trigger any longer – more concentration or boredom.  We changed medicine, increased medicine, decreased medicine – nothing helped.  Robbie was telling me that he wanted to stop but just did not know how.  So, we started looking for fidgets to help replace the hair pulling.  This then leads me to Pinterest.  I was looking for sensory games and items.  I created a new board with the coolest games, toys and even educational material until I found by accident an article talking about N-Acetylcysteine NOW NAC 600 mg,250 Veg Capsules.  The article talked about this vitamin that people were using to recognize when they were pulling. NAC is an over-the-counter dietary supplement, is a natural amino acid that helps deliver the amino acid L-cysteine to your body. L-cysteine is found in the normal diet, in low quantities, in foods that contain protein. However, taking the supplement can greatly increase the amount of L-cysteine that your brain receives. We started Robbie on it and it worked!  He needs to stay on it and still pulls (arm, eyebrow, legs and head) but not like before.  That is how Pinterest helped his Trichotillomania!

For more information on how NAC works I found this article helpful.

If you liked this post, share it on Pinterest!