In this blog, I offer lots and lots of examples of people that have eliminated the urge to pull associated with trichotillomania. These people also usually experience incredible improvements in other areas of their lives as well, including improvements in mood, elimination of migraine headaches, decreased or elimination of anxiety and improvements in focus, concentration and memory. However, the road to these improvements is not always straightforward; the following case provides a great example.
Eliminating the urge to pull in most people is a relatively straight forward process – we work to adjust a person’s amino acid therapy to optimize their neurotransmitter function and the urge to pull goes away. This can happen in as little as two days for some people; others take much longer.
I have been working with a 43 year old woman – I’ll call her Jean – to help with several issues she experienced in relation to improper neurotransmitter function, including intense sugar/sweet cravings, increased appetite, binging behaviors, migraines and a powerful urge to pull the hair on the top of her head. She had experienced all of these symptoms for a couple decades by the time she found us.
Over the course of 8 months, we were able to help her eliminate all of these symptoms – she no longer experienced migraines, her binging behavior had stopped and her cravings were under much better control; the one thing that had not improved was her urge to pull. This is unusual, as the urge to pull is usually one of the first things to go as we rebalance a person’s neurotransmitter levels.
Testing shows that her neurotransmitter levels are not yet optimized and that she has an unusually high need for dopamine precursors. Dopamine is an excitatory neurotransmitter that helps us experience pleasure as well as be able to focus and concentrate. Research has shown that people with low dopamine function are more likely to seek out pleasure-inducing foods, drinks, drugs and/or activities; not surprisingly, many people with low dopamine levels experience addiction of some kind.
Jean relayed to me that her mother was an alcoholic and that she had two brothers that were also being treated for alcohol and/or drug addiction. A third sister was a compulsive gambler. This was interesting, as Jean’s amino acid needs were indicative of these types of behaviors, even though she did not actually experience them. Somehow, Jean had been able to avoid these pleasure-inducing habits; however, she did experience an almost constant urge to pull.
We have helped numerous people that have suffered from some kind of addiction or compulsive behavior get control of their lives using a multi-disciplined approach that includes amino acid therapy. I have no doubt that we will be able to help Jean eliminate her urge to pull. Genetics may not be on her side, but that doesn’t mean she is destined to her fate. Near-miraculous change can occur once person’s neurotransmitter levels become balanced – we’ve seen it over and over again. It will be another great day when Jean experiences this first hand.
