Help, hair in stomach?

[blondeorbronde]

Hi,

just wondered if anyone can advise about this if possible. I’ve had a really horrible habit for a few years where I eat my hair when I get nervous. I have long hair and even when I tie it up I end up subconsciously pulling bits down and chewing and eating it. I was a bad nail biter before that and I think I’ve swapped one bad habit for another.

I’m trying my best to stop but for some reason it seems to be my default whenever I get nervous (which is quite a lot unfortunately) and I don’t even realise im doing it now. But I recently found out that hair doesn’t break down in the stomach and there’s a possibility of it forming a hair ball and causing serious problems.

I don’t usually have health anxiety at all, but I’m just slightly worried about this. Is it likely the hair I’ve already swallowed will cause a problem one day? Or is it only a problem if you’ve done it for a long long time, say 10+ years or more?

thanks x

I think in your shoes I'd probably make a visit to my GP to see if I could get some help dealing with this habit, maybe some sort of stress counselling, as having just looked it up, this could become a serious health problem if you can't find a way of stopping. Having been a nail biter all my life, and recently managed to give up again, I think I'd rather bite my nails that chew my hair.

I second advice to visit GP.
Counselling is the minimum they can offer you. Be frank, and tell them you need help, don't let them fob you off. Advocating for yourself is difficult but that's the only way. Been there, done that.

I've recently read up on this myself as it's more common than you think, and yeah over time it can turn into a ball of hair you need to get checked out.

This is the reason cats cough out hair balls! Very small amounts of ingested hair will pass through, larger amounts won't!
OP- What support have you had for your trichophagia? Have you seen your GP, had CBT, have any mental health support? If none, then please speak to you GP.

Here's a book recommendation "The BFRB recovery workbook : effective recovery from hair pulling, skin picking, nail biting and other body-focused repetitive behaviors" by Marla W Deibler.

TRIGGER

OP, I hesitated to post this but I will put a trigger and alert MN just in case it needs to be removed.

I distinctly being in my last year of primary school lining up outside in the morning as the whistle went for us to go in for the day.

A teacher announced that my friend had passed away. It came to light that she had been eating her hair for some time, got into a ball, couldn’t pass it through. She was only 10.

If you can seek help, please do.

If you are going to post a trigger warning, you should say what it’s for, especially when there is no obvious triggering context, on a post such as this.
e.g. Trigger warning: child death.
Otherwise it’s completely pointless.

You are suffering from Tricophagia - you really need to see your GP and get immediate help to stop, and also get the situation with the hair you’ve already swallowed checked out. It can indeed be very dangerous. The hair can cause a blockage and and require surgical removal. I won’t go into further details, you can look it up for yourself. Good luck, OP.

Yes it could cause an issue if you’ve actually been eating it. The odd hair very occasionally would likely be ok but any more could cause serious problems. You need to go see a doctor and don’t eat any more.

This is massively unhelpful and will cause more anxiety for the OP!

Hairspray or a gel that tastes vile.

As a child I did this, my mum cut my hair.