trichotillomania

[chachaheels234]

My ds has a diagnosis of HFA and has been tugging and twiddling with his hair for a few months now. Today we visited GP who says he has trichotillmania. I asked the GP what can we do to help him and his reply was there is nothing we can do, he just has to resist the urge. So i was wondering if any of you know of anything we can do to help him, does anyone have any experience of trichotillomania.

This is just one of those pompous doctor words which repeats back exactly what the patient has just told him - only in a long greek derived word. Your boy is obsessed with playing with his hair. My boy has had similar things along the way, like teeth-grinding or licking his hands. They have sort of divided into 2 categories: some have just gone awy naturally, with age, while others we have stopped him every time he does it - exhausting, but it does eventually 'disrupt the habit'. I thik it's a sensory habit, like thumb-sucking. Have you tried finding a kind of 'twiddlling toy' as a substitute?