Q. What can help my 5-year-old from a disorder that causes her to pull her hair out? -Anita

My almost 5 yr old daughter has a disorder called trichotillomania is there anything with her diet or natural supplements to help her stop puling her hair out? Most treatments want to put her on anti-depressants and I just think she’s too young for all those chemicals. -Anita

Hi Anita,

I agree. It is unlikely that your 5 year old is depressed and even if she is, it’s not because of a lack of some synthetic chemical. I can’t say that I have ever treated a case of trichotillomania but then lets explore just exactly what that is. It is nothing more than a list of “symptoms” that fit your daughters behavior. In other words there are no tests to diagnose her and she has not been found to have any deficiencies in her biochemistry. I say this with confidence because trichotillomania is a diagnosis listed in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM-IV. Although this list of diagnoses are key for psychiatrists to place a code on a diagnosis in order to bill your insurance, it serves little other purpose. The diagnoses in this book are just a list of symptoms that a group of psychiatrists made up in order to put peoples behaviors into categories.

There is absolutely no testing or diagnostic analysis to identify any actual physical or biochemical abnormality. Then, drugs are arbitrarily selected and “tried” to see what happens. If a drug works to reduce symptoms then we pat ourselves on the back even thought the drug did not fix the underlying problem, it just covered it up, which although helpful is no guarantee of lasting results. If the drug didn’t work then we simply spin the big wheel and pick another. For many, this is a standard and satisfactory approach. I am not one of those “many”.

I would offer you a different perspective that I feel offers a greater chance of long term improvement and actual resolution. When we look at the behavior of trichotillomania, what is actually going on here? The DSM-IV would list this as an impulse control disorder, a tic, or an obsessive-compulsive disorder. I agree with this and so the question to ask is WHY? Why is a 5 year old girl experiencing such anxiety and compulsive expression? I would look at this as a sign of inflammation in her brain. Something has her neurons feeling overstimulated and not at rest. So lets look at some simple everyday issues that would cause this. Is she eating too much sugar, or processed foods? Is there MSG in the diet? How about aspartame or Nutri-Sweet? These can all be “irritants” to the brain. In fact MSG will actually kill neurons as it over excites them. Is she sleeping soundly? I might ponder a guess that her sleep cycles are disturbed, that she either doesn’t go to sleep easily or that she awakens through the night and gets less than 9 hours of sleep per night. This would be a sign of an inflamed brain that can’t rest. Do you have silver amalgams (dental fillings)? If so then she may have a significant amount of mercury in her body obtained during pregnancy or perhaps even lead from environmental exposure that will absolutely cause inflammation. This is one of the key elements in many autism cases. Does her diet offer clean sources of protein and by clean I mean organic. Pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, PCB’s, dioxins, phthalates and a host of other toxins in our diet can be problematic as we ingest them in processed foods and contaminated drinking water. Overwhelmed yet? I am not trying to confuse you but rather point out that there a myriad of potential issues that may be driving her behaviors, none of which stem from a lack of synthetic drug compound.

Where to start? Clean up her environment and her diet. If this were my daughter I would start by removing any MSG or aspartame from her diet. Go online and find a list of the different names that MSG goes by. Google “hidden names for MSG” and print off that list and remove any of this type food from your pantry. Avoid processed foods as much as humanly possible. Eat whole organic food and avoid sugar. Yes, her diet will be different than her school mates. Get over it. Your fighting for your daughters health, not her ability to be as toxic as her friends. Next, get a good home filter system for your tap water. You can buy a charcoal or reverse osmosis system online via “water filter comparisons ,com” . This will help your entire family. No more vaccines until you figure out why your daughters brain is inflamed. And now for the tough one – NO WHEAT and NO MILK. Get rid of these inflammatory foods. The reason and explanation is a long one so I do not have the space to go into it here. There have been documented cases where people have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis as a result of their CT scans and symptoms but were later found to have nothing more than a wheat allergy. When wheat was removed from the diet, the CT improved and the symptoms went away. See other article on this website regarding milk and wheat to start you education in this area. Yes, I know it’s hard but it’s only hard for the first two weeks while you are figuring it out. Need help? Call LaValle Metabolic Institute and schedule an appointment with Katherine my dietitian who can walk you thru the process and get you started. It has the potential to pay great dividends. It is not too hard as I have done it on my own home. My kids are better for it and my health has improved as well. Beyond this, a heavy metal urine teat could show if there is mercury, lead ,aluminum, or other metals affecting her brain. If you need help with this then contact me for an appointment or see an integrative care specialist who is able to assist you.

If she presently has a sleep issue then you can start to help her by giving her melatonin and/or theanine. These are natural products and not drug compound that can start to ease her symptoms without causing adverse changes to her biochemistry. They are simply tools to ease symptoms as we explore the real source of her difficulty. Seek help with these products and use them under the care of a knowledgeable physician or clinician.

Bottom line is that you have a journey ahead of you and your daughter is counting on your persistence to find an answer. There is an answer and perhaps several, and your daughters problem can likely be reversed as you explore and look for the “WHY”.

Good luck in your journey,
Dr. Huber