Trichophagia

For people suffering from trichotillomania — a psychological disorder that drives people to compulsively pick out their hair – nearly 30% will actually eat their hair. This is what trichophagia is — an impulse control disorder secondary to compulsive hair picking.

Since the hair in not digestible, it collects in a ball in the intestines and stomach, potentially causing indigestion and other negative side affects. In some extreme cases (roughly 1% of all Trichophagia cases) surgical intervention is required to remove the trichobezoar (a fancy word for “hairball”).

Especially dangerous is the formation — in the upper intestines — of a tail from the main body of the hairball. This extremely rare, but life-threatening case is called “Rapunzel’s Syndrome”. The analogy is to Rapunzel’s long hair, as well as to the moral of the story — that the young Rapunzel was able to escape her predicament with her own hair, metaphorically speaking. Something similar could be said of those who engage in compulsive hair eating — seeking emotional wholeness, or distraction from their problems, through the ritual of trichophagia.

Causes and Treatments for Trichophagia

Similar to the treatments for compulsive nail biting or compulsive skin picking (dermatillomania) — the best treatment for Trichophagia is a combination of behavior modification and cognitive therapy (or cognitive behavioral therapy). Getting to the root of why one engages in the self-injurious habit of picking and eating one’s own hair is the key.