No effective treatment for hair pulling disorder, says study

Thursday January 18, 2007 in: Hair Tag(s):

Did you know that there is such as thing as a hair pulling disorder? Although rare, it does exist, and it's called trichotillomania. People suffering from this condition repeatedly pull their own hair out, and hair loss is an all too-common result.

And unfortunately, there is hardly an effective treatment for this disorder, according to a study led by Dr. Douglas W. Woods of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Reuters gives more details:

Up to 3.4 percent of adults may suffer from trichotillomania, Woods and his colleagues note in their report in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Hair-pulling appears to help people relieve tension, but little is known about why people develop the disorder or if it is related to other psychological problems, such as depression and anxiety.

To better understand the condition, Woods and his team surveyed 1,697 people with symptoms of trichotillomania who had been recruited through the Trichotillomania Learning Center's Web page (www.trich.org).