Online Test

Find out the severity of your symptoms with this free online test

Fuzzy Wuzzy , 01 Oct 2016

Trich and folliculitis

So glad I found an active support forum! I'm just coming to realize that my peculiar habits are causing health problems. For about 25 years I have had varying urges to pull out my beard and mustache hair. At first I wasn't even aware I was doing it; at the end of the day my desk at work would be covered with dozens of hairs and I'd have a bald spot on my lip.

Stressful job went away and with it the trich, but it resurfaced a few years later in an odd way. I had a sore spot on the side of my neck, an inch or two outside the normal range of my beard line, and I found that pulling out the lone hair in that spot relieved the tension. But that only lasted until the hair grew back. Over the past decade, the one isolated spot has become two, then three, and now there are four spots -- two on one cheek, one on the other cheek, and the original neck spot -- where I can't stand the feel of hairs growing out of those places so I'm constantly pulling with the tweezers.

In all of these spots, my skin is always infected; a doctor (unaware of the pulling) said it looked like pretty standard folliculitis. Both problems have gone on so long, I'm not really sure which came first... whether the trich caused the folliculitis, or the other way around.

Does anyone else pull at facial hair? And do you also have folliculitis in the spots where you pull?

Took the first step today and hid the tweezers and mirror. I guess if I can't get it under control myself I'll have to go see a shrink... but I'm tired of being in my mid-50s and looking like I still have acne

2 Answers
Tasneem Abrahams
October 03, 2016

Hi there Fuzzy Wuzzy, welcome to the forum. Thanks for sharing your experience with this forum. Certainly facial hair pulling is quite common. Its great that tou have tried to implement some stimulus controls. Best of luck!



http://www.trichstop.com/facial-hair-eyelashes-eyebrow-pulling



http://www.trichstop.com/habit-reversal-training-for-trichotillomania


Samsar
September 15, 2019
I feel exactly the same i was trying to see if someone else feel the same i found your post now 2 years old but ive been pulling my hair for year and a half now and can't stop i feel that there something under my skin burning me and itching like pins and i can't find a way to stop i pulled all of my chin Beard hair and I'm going crazy can't find a way to stop i don't know if i have a derma problem i check with a dermatologist but nothing could be done but i feel that my skin is not ok but i don't know if it's because of trich or the opposite and yeah i have a very stressful job but i don't know i wish i can find help

Start your journey with TrichStop

Take control of your life and find freedom from hair pulling through professional therapy and evidence-based behavioral techniques.

Start Now