DS PULLING OUT HIS HAIR...LITERALLY.

[MUM23ASD]

Found a large clump of hair in his washing pile yesterday- and he told me he'd had a tangle and pulled it out.

I thought no more about it untill 10 minutes ago when he was bent down packing his school bag.

He has a COMPLETELY BALD PATCH approc 2" SQUARE on the top of his head.

This i'd say is since saturday....

I've looked and there seems to be no sign of irritation etc- so am assuming this is more of a 'repetitive stimming behaviour' than due to infection etc.

Am going to ring the paed at 9 as he's also lost 7lb in past 2 weeks.
He's very anious and touchy at the moment.

have phoned and asked paed to phone me as soon as she can.

thinking about how he's done this...he said he had a tangle...he has always been a fiddler- i bet he has been sat there absent mindedly twirling hair round his fingers whilst using computor- and cos he's insisted on growing his hair at the moment (cos he hates the feel of short hair) his hair is atleast 4" long and i reckon he's getting it tangled in his fingers.

hopefully, now he knows the consequence he will stop ( but he has never learnt from experience in the past...so i am being rather hopeful that he will this time)

No advice MUM23ASD, just lots of sympathy ((()))

My DD also pull her own hair out in massive handfulls, but its normally when she angry/frustrated.

Hope the pead has some usefull advice.

Is he on any meds?? have they changed recently? (thinking about his weight loss here)Is he eating ok at school?

Is he stressed about anything? Have you spoken to school?

no, meds have not changed....been on methylphenidate for 7 years- and aware of it's reducing his appetite- but never had such massive wight loss as this.

He basically takes his tablets at 7am- and has never been a breackfast eater- he has always been the same- so he goes all day till 6pm eating very little. The paediatrician reassured me last month that it was normal for the meds he is on...and we should increase his food intake in the evenings- which we have.

Is this the same DS with the school problems this week? Hope the paed has something helpful to suggest.

persil... no, unfortunately this in a different ds.

DS3 is the one with all the school probs....and to have this come to light this morning was the final straw.

However, another MNETTER (Riven) is having far worse to deal with- and now i am calming down.

Dd also does this. I cut her hair short. She can only pull it out when she can wind it round her fingers.

If she can't pull it out then gradually she stops fiddling with it. Then I can let it grow out a little.

Don't know if this helps as he probably has short hair anyway.

persil- i have 3 boys and all are ASD.

sorry btw I used the wrong login (the persil login was for a separate market research thing!). twas me, not persil!

can you encourage him to talk about what is bothering him? or if not, encourage him to use his hands for something different - puzzles/gaming etc?

sweetgrapes...no- he's grown his hair- so you may have a great solution there!

TotalChaos....tricking me like that!!!!