If by "cure" you are talking about one thing which has been found to help everyone who has tried it, then there is no known cure. There are, however, many things which have worked for different people and which might help you.
Some people believe they have found cures and offer many different explanations for what worked for them. Some people have simply stopped pulling. However, as we know, that doesn't seem to work for most people.On this page are some other more common things to which people attibute their success.
First a disclaimer: There is no one right thing to try. Nothing is guaranteed to work. Practically everything is guaranteed not to work as well as you hope. The first thing you try might be frustrating. Don't automatically abandon it. Try more. A combination of things working together on many different aspects of your trich and your life are almost guaranteed to give you a high degree of success. Now, do remember that some of these things require much energy at first. It has been documented that all of these tools can become easier to employ as they become second nature, but we realize that part of your recovery is based on timing. At all points in your life, there will be stressors. There is no truly convenient time to recover from trich, but we realize that, for instance, if you are an accountant in the U.S., April 1st might not be the day for you to decide to stop pulling. We still welcome you on the board anyway, no matter what stage of your recovery you are in.
Finally, before we move on it needs to be said that people can be making progress even when they don't perceive that to be the case. If their only yardstick is amount of hair pulled, they may overlook that they are becoming more aware of their urges, better at initially resisting urges (even if later they succumb), etc. These "baby steps" really do make a difference over time.
Now a disclaimer to the disclaimer above! I have been advised to point out that some people do stop pulling, forever as far as we know. And they move on. Yes, many have relapses, but many don't. Lots of former pullers won't even find the board because they won't need to. If you talk to acquaintances about pulling, many will say "yeah, I (or someone I know) used to do that when I was in younger but I quit." I've tended to avoid writing about that sort of thing because it has been occasionally depressing to me to compare myself to people who were able to just move on and look back at that thing they used to do. To me that seemed to have been minimizing the hard work that I have put into this and which I know a lot of people have to put into it. It sounds like someone criticizing us by saying, "I quit smoking cold turkey so I know you could quit this if you tried." However, it was pointed out to me that the thought of months of hard work can be depressing too, so I ought to point out that some people take control very quickly. Yes, that is a possibility. You might luck out! This could happen to you. :-)
But (I am whispering, so that you don't have to listen :-) if you do slip, remember that we who have been putting that depressing hard work into it find that it becomes easier to recover. Yes, for many of us the urges come back strongly sometimes, but in between times we have weeks and months without urges that give us a chance to breathe. The long periods of peace are definitely worth the first few weeks and months of hard work. And relapses don't detract from the peace. We know it can come again if we just ride out the temporary pain of the relapse.
I do know about how depressing those thoughts of hard work and possible relapse can be. I've worked on combatting them with different kinds of tricks in my own mind, including the trick of realizing that anything truly is possible but mixing it up with varying degrees of letting it go or telling myself I don't mind or setting different sizes of goals.
Note that there are exceptions to almost everything, arguments on many sides. Some of those arguments are mentioned below.
One reason these might offer relief is that "babying" oneself can feel good and might go a long way to relieving the psychological dependence on the strange grooming aspects of trich. However, the following do deal with more obviously physical aspects of trich also.
This list got very long. So I moved it to its own page. Don't let it overwhelm you. Just realize it is there for when you run out of ideas of your own or need a reminder. Definitely pick and choose--a recurrent theme is what happens when "to do" lists get too long, so you wouldn't want to turn this into another too-long to-do list!
Behavior mod is very important whether or not meds are also tried. The material on this also became so long that I moved it to another page. Here is a brief survey of what you will see when you follow the above link.
The following list was compiled from the bulletin board archives. The general feeling that one might get from reading the list is either that meds are ineffective or that the compiler of the list was biased against meds. In fact, some very positive things have been said on the board about meds but most have indeed been about things such as lifting depression, alleviating anxiety, increasing energy, improving concentration, or other things not directly related to the physical act of pulling out one's hair. I will try to find the relevant quote but for now I will just try to paraphrase a position which I believe has been expressed by people affiliated with TLC:
It is felt by most experts that if trich is a person's only complaint (that is, if a concurrent condition such as OCD, bipolar disorder, AD(H)D, depression, etc. has not also been diagnosed), it is not adviseable to take meds as the first thing they try; instead, behavior mod is advised, and even with meds behavior mod should be included in the therapy. [It has been pointed out to me that I am paraphrasing Carol Novak. So eventually I will include a link to her Pioneer Clinic here. I haven't ever explored that site (sorry to admit) but definitely will before the the final FAQ draft.]
Warning: in some cases meds have actually increased pulling.
Warning: be careful about drug interactions, even with "little" things like cough medicines.
If meds is a route you want to explore but you cannot afford them, a site was recently found on the internet offering free meds if you meet certain criteria. On the surface it looks legimimate and no one has given any negative feedback, so you might want to check out The Medicine Program.
Here, then, is the list of meds discussed on the bulletin board:
(Don't take this with any cough medicines which end with "DM," per message #17191, April 30, 1998.)
As the person typing up this FAQ I take the liberty of saying that I feel Dexedrine has been highly effective in my fight against trich. It is true that urges weren't eliminated totally, but they have been lessened. In addition, the two most important effects related to trich were a decrease in my tendency to slip into the trance associated with trich and an increase in my ability to follow through on behavior mod resolutions. Those effects are reasonable and, I would think, often replicable in trichsters with ADHD. However, many parents have reported that their children on Ritalin, another ADHD med, seem to have increased problems with pulling. And since I am not totally urge-free (merely much improved, which could also be explained merely by my active participation on the bulletin board) the conclusion drawn by the person who compiled the above list is still valid.
Two posts by someone who has had success completely without meds
The John Kender Diet
The following is Amanda's introduction to and summary of a diet which had a profoundly positive effect on her urge to pull her hair (in large print because the original print was too small and at this moment I am not on an editor which will let me return it to normal size).
John Kender (a TTM sufferer) has developed a diet which has kept him pull free for 7 years already! This diet has not been scientifically tested or proven, but many, many TTM sufferers have tried this diet and have found it to help tremendously. It is no magic cure, and unfortunately does not work for everyone, but if it works for you.................it is wonderful! I have been on the diet since Sept 1996 and it has been many months (going for many years) of being virtually pull-free and urge-free! I can recommend it for everyone to try! As with most things concerning TTM, the diet is a very personal thing. What works for some, does"t always work for others. You have to find your own personal diet. I, for instance, do not have a problem with aspartame, but had a huge problem with raisins, which was not on the original diet. Being on the diet is not always easy, but once you start getting results, it really encourages you to stay on it. Good luck to all trying it - may you all have wonderful success with it.
In John's words: "In general, my hypothesis is that it may be that people inclined to TTM have a natural biochemistry irreversibly inclined towards certain allergic reactions. They are allergic to a normal yeast (Malessizia sp.) that is found in the skin and gut of virtually everyone, but they react to it with itching and irritation and a need to remove the allergen. "There are therefore "bad" foods, and "good" foods. Bad foods cause an increase in hair-pulling 1.5 to 2 days after ingestion, peak around day 3 or 4 and take about a week to get back to whatever is the usual amount of discomfort. The exception (sugar), has a more rapid effect, much less that 0.5 day, but also a more rapid decline, about 2 days to baseline. It seems to take about one month of abstinence from "bad" foods to flush out TTM symptoms entirely, so be patient, and try to perservere. "Good" foods seem to have a positive effect on mood and control within 0.5 days, but wear off in about 1 day, unless repeated. Yogurt, however, seems to take longer to work, about a week, but is longer lasting, about 3 days. In general, the "bad" overpowers the "good", unfortunately.
Here is the list:
Bad foods - stay away! (It usually takes 3-4 days to show an
effect, except sugar which can cause a trigger from half to 1 day)
Sugar (Refined sugars, honey, molasses)
Eggs (Yolk, white is ok)
Peanuts (and some other nuts)
Legumes (Beans and bean products, peas, soy, lentils, liquorice)
Butter (Margarine ok, if not made from soy)
Shellfish
Organ meats (liver, kidneys)
Caffeine
Nutrasweet (a trigger for a lot of people, I seem to be ok with it)
Raisins (definite trigger for me - even just a handful)
Grapes and watermelon (for me it is a trigger, don't know about others)
Good foods: (to help a bit with the urges)
Allicins(Onion, Garlic)
Tannins(Unsweetened tea,Cheap dry red wine)
Yogurt(unsweetened)
Tropical fruits(Pineapple, kiwi fruit, papaya, guava, mangoes)
Please note that you have to give the diet a chance - at least a month before you decide that it doesn't work. More detailed info on Nannette's site. If you have more queries on the diet, please contact John Kender.
Evidence connecting potassium and trich (taken from a post on the bulletin board)
I used to read the board a lot, but I haven't been around for a couple of months because the work load at school picked up, and there are so many posts reading them all is pretty time consuming! I'm an animal science major in Texas and I've been pulling eyelashes/ other areas for about 11 years. In the animal nutrition class that I got out of a few minutes ago, we were discussing what posassium defficiency can do and some of the factors that can cause it. The professor showed us a slides of cattle with BIG BALD PATCHES on their sides, belly, anywhere they can reach with their teeth. Potassium deffiency can cause animals to pull out and sometimes eat their own hair!!! We also learned that stress (from shipping or being moved to a new herd, etc.) increases the amount of potassium that is excreted in the urine. The hair-pulling/eating goes away when animals are supplemented with potassium. I nearly cried when I heard all this. I saw some posts a few months ago about potassium only being a placebo, but this *really* makes me believe it's not. I realize that human beings are much more complicated creatures than your average dairy cow, and that breaking the *habit* part is extremely difficult, but it looks like a potassium defficiency may well be the actual *physical* cause for a lot of people. Maybe medical doctors and veterinarians should talk to each other more...