Meet 19-Year-Old Woman Who Pulled Out All Her Hair While Asleep & Woke Up Bald

A 19-year-old Australian teen, Tiarne Menzies, awoke one night in October last year to discover clumps of her hair on her pillow.

‘It was the middle of the night when I woke suddenly. A burning sensation prickled my scalp. And there, coiled around my fingers, were long strands of my thick, dark hair.’

Miss Menzies initially thought her hair was shedding, but after a few weeks of waking to more and more hair on her pillow, she realised she was pulling it out herself.

‘I started to wake in the night to find clumps of hair in my hands. Bald patches started to appear on my scalp and there were areas where my locks were torn short.’

Speaking to That’s Life magazine, Tiarne recounts her attempts to disguise the growing bald patches by styling her hair, but before long they were too large to hide.

After discounting alopecia, her GP diagnosed Tiarne with trichotillomania.

Sometimes associated to depression or anxiety, trichotillomania is an incurable impulse disorder where sufferers have the compulsive urge to pull out their hair.

Sufferers may pull out hair from their head, eyelashes, eyebrows, legs, arms, or hands.

Tiarne was the victim of an attack several years earlier which caused a bout of depression, but had thought she was on the mend.

With the teen already taking anti-depressants, the only solution doctors could offer were suggestions on how to prevent herself from getting a hold of her hair during sleep.

‘My psychologist suggested I try wrapping a scarf over my hair in bed, or wearing a shower cap to ease my habit. I tried that, but still I would wake in the morning to find the scarf or cap on the floor and my shredded hair scattered on my pillow. Nothing seemed to help,’ said Tiarne.

Eventually, Miss Menzies took control back by shaving her hair off completely in February, and says she felt a sense of relief.

Source: DailyMail