I have given a couple updates over the past year about a client of ours with trichotillomania named Sabrina (see A Work in Progress – An Update and A Work in Progress – Sabrina’s Story. I have spoken with Sabrina’s mom several times over the past several months and have further updates for you on her progress.
First, some background. Sabrina was adapted at a very young age. She started showing signs of trichotillomania (TTM) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as a young child and her parents had tried literally almost everything they could think of to help her with both conditions. Unfortunately, nothing helped and Sabrina was becoming more and more apprehensive to go out of the house.
We worked with Sabrina and her mom for 9 months before we had our first breakthrough. From that point on, it was ‘two steps forward, one step back’ for a while, with more or less steady progress as her urges to pull and OCD gradually became less and less.
For the past two months now, Sabrina has been rating her TTM a “0” on a scale of 1-10 and her OCD “0-1” on a scale of 1-10. She also states that when the OCD flares up, she can quickly and calmly talk herself through it, often within a matter of seconds. This is a HUGE advance from where we started: at that time TTM was rated 8-10 on a scale of 1-10 and Sabrina had pulled many bald spots on her head and her OCD had “taken over her life” with hours of ritual cleaning and grooming throughout the day and constant fear of germs and contamination.
Now, she “doesn’t pull at all” and the OCD is “almost non-existent”. The plan is to keep Sabrina at her current dosing level for the next several months before we begin a steady, slow taper to begin to reduce her amino acid dosing while maintaining her newfound health and vitality. Congratulations Sabrina!!
