Do you know people who used to pull their hair from their crown or other body areas when they feel too anxious or stressed out? There are plenty of such guys around, and their condition is scientifically known as hair pulling disorder. For other scientists this disorder goes as Trichotillomania (TTM). There are some extreme cases when people who feel compelled to pulling their hair out when they are stressed also display some extra signs like tearing their hair laces apart or even eating those. Most of such people understand the weirdness of the problem, therefore, they do everything possible for executing this weird habit in private. However, it is not always possible, and their habit very often becomes a point of public interest and reprehension. According to the specialists, it is estimated that about 280,000 people in modern United Kingdom suffer from one or another stage of hair pulling disorder, or trichotillomania.

Those experts who studied this psychological disorder have discovered that TTM is more common in women rather than in men. This disorder usually starts developing in secondary or high school, and later in the life can turn into a nightmare for some of the patients, as well as for those around them. There were some scientific studies on hair pulling disorder which could not actually bring to any explanations or discoveries as to what could be the causes of this serious disorder. Many experts tend to understand this disorder as an addiction and a sign of high levels of anxiety, manifesting by compulsive hair pulling. Obviously, the effects of this psychological disorder go far beyond just ruined hairline and compulsive hair loss. Hair pulling disorder is always linked to damaged self-perception and self-esteem, increased feeling of shame and being weird, feeling a lack of understanding and even social isolation. Other negative effects are linked to digestive problems caused by hair accumulation in the stomach of the patients.

The most common treatment for hair pulling disorder includes anti-depressants and other related medications. Some great results were achieved by using hypnosis and other types of psychotherapy. Other solutions involve closing access to hair by wearing some head-wear or blocking hair in the problematic areas by using bandages, plasters, etc. Though these ideas not always help, they can be tried by those who suffer from this problem. There are numerous cases of hair pulling disorder reported regularly in modern media, and pulling out eyelashes seems to be one of the most common forms of modern time’s trichotillomania. In particular, the story of a young lady named Joanna is reported nowadays. The girl suffered from hair pulling disorder since the age of 7, and she was pulling out her eyelashes when she was feeling stressed out. Despite the fact that she managed to get rid of this terrible habit, eyelashes did not grow back since the follicles have undergo permanent damage and did not develop again.

As a solution to this problem, Joanna decided to have an eyelash transplant. She was offered the procedure of transplanting hair from the back of her head to the eyelids. The surgery was successfully done by a leading specialist and hair surgeon from the Crown Clinic in Manchester, and he used a local anesthetic to  transplant hair follicles. Now, Joanna feels great and her appearance has drastically improved. However, as donor hair follicles were taken from her head hair, they go on growing as usual head hair coming from the scalp, so Joanna needs to trim and curl her eyelashes regularly. ‘I remember thinking that if there was some procedure that could replace the missing eyelashes then my life would be changed forever,as I wouldn’t wake up in the morning and put make-up on to cover it up before even seeing other members of my family,’ she said. Specialists underline that this new technology can be effectively used not only by those who suffer from hair pulling disorder, but also by those women who damage their natural eye lashed by using false eyelashes, etc.