Can
Hair Care Products Help?
Recently, TTM-ers who find
that John Kender's yeast hypothesis has some validity
have been using alternate hair care items. Some TTM-ers report no pulling as a
result of using certain hair care items regardless of what they are eating. The
products being used are: White Rain Classic Care Extra Body or Herbal Essences. Instead of
using a conditioner, TTM-er's are using pure aloe vera gel. Mike Grant has a whole scalp care regime listed on another page of this site.
Another measure to add to this is using Cuticura soap for the body. This helps get
rid of all yeasts on the skin on both scalp and body. Don't forget to keep your hands
clean if you have furry pets at home. Here's what John Kender has to say:
"Hallopals, I've tried to pull together some of the
data I have been getting from various TTMers who find some shampoos "good" and
others "bad". I could use much more data (I only have about a dozen or so
reports so far), but I caught what I think is a pattern. I am sharing it prematurely here
without a good deal of verification in order to try to stimulate more reports from out
there about what shampoos people find helpful or hurtful. I know not everyone has run out
and bought Nizoral or Cuticura, even though people still have to use *some* shampoo and
those two would be two of the better ones for TTM. If I had to guess, most people
generally don't pay that much attention to shampoos one way or another, so they tend to
buy what is on sale. But this might also be one of the reasons that TTM "waxes and
wanes". Just suppose that there *is* a difference in the effect that certain
ingredients have on TTM. Then, maybe one reason why people go for a while with bad pulling
or good remissions could be that what they got on sale just happened to be "bad"
or "good" that time. A couple of weeks or months later, the sales change and the
pulling changes, too, mysteriously. In any case, it looks like the following
ingredients are helpful for TTM: cocamidopropyl betaine, ethoxydiglycol, and iodopropynyl
butylcarbamate. I can speculate on why, if anyone is interested. (Write John Kender) But if you are thinking
of trying a shampoo with some or all of these ingredients, here are two helpful hints:
1) It appears to be conditioners, not shampoos, that induce
The Itch for those people susceptible to it. No amount of "good" shampoo is
going to help if it is followed by globs of "bad" goo. If there is one good
reason why women get TTM more than men, it may very well be that women more than men coat
their scalp with wretched irritants. As Mike Grant suggests, use aloe vera gel instead as
a conditioner. Or just go natural afterwards, like guys do.
2) I have experimented with about five shampoos that have
some of these ingredients ingredients. Only two commonly available shampoos appear to have
all three. One is "Ahava Shampoo Dry/Normal", available on the web. The other is
"White Rain Classic Care Extra Body". The "Extra Body" appears to be
important; the "WRCC" without the "EB" is missing the ethoxydiglycol
and it does seem to make a big differences. Oh, then there's cost. Ahava is $16 for 8
ounces over the net. Fortunately, the "WRCCEB" is more than 25 times cheaper; I
paid $1.33 for 15 ounces in my neighborhood pharmacy. Happy sudsing! Let us know what your
experiences are, please. John."
He Goes On To Say:
" I have received a report from a list member who has found that using a shampoo
with CAPB and IPBC (cocamidopropyl betaine and iodopropynyl butylcarbamate),
when followed with aloe vera gel as conditioner, has been quite helpful with pulling, even
while reading at night. Since I had also had a similar experience--there is something in
such shampoos that just seem to make the skin feel good--I thought I'd pass it on and
encourage others to try. This should be a bit more popular than asking people to diet. You
got to wash your hair, anyway, right? If you don't want to spend your time reading lables,
then here is what to look for: use either White Rain Classic Care Extra Body (my
personal favorite) or Clairol Herbal Essences Extra Body, both of which are
inexpensive. There are a lot of special shampoos made for salons that would do, too; check
their labels and pay the premium. If you want extra super power, go for one that also has EODG
(ethoxydiglycol) in it, like the White Rain Classic Care Extra Body does. That
really does seem to give it an extra edge, and not just for the extra body that it is put
in there for. For the chemically inclined: there is some evidence that CAPB is
antibacterial, that IPBC is antifungal, and that EODB is a penetration enhancer.
But maybe the magic is that all these compounds are four letter words!"
Propylyene Glycol (Posted
16th of June, 2001)
"Hallopals,
I sent something like the following earlier today but somewhere along the way it
appears to have entered a state of terminal entropy increase in the Great Bit Bucket in
the Sky. It might pop back out of a black hole in the future (my personal best is a
five day mysterious delay), but I'm not betting on it. In short: I took Mike Grant's
word, and added some pure aloe vera gel to the alcohol plus propylene glycol mixture.
It seems to both soothe the skin more and keep it from drying out more. (As
it said at the end on one set of directions to a Chinese child's toy I was assembling:
"You are success!".) Here's the formula. The proportions are not very
critical, since they all mix well, and the alchohol will disinfect the skin and hair and
then evaporate, leaving the PG as an antifungal and AV as a moisturizer and nerve-calmer:
3 parts rubbing alcohol
1 part propylyene glycol
1 part pure aloe vera gel
As far as I can determine, the ingredients are cheap, safe, and easy to find. Let me
know if you try it. John
"
September 19th, 2000 - Corn
"Hallopals,
Pursuing the nutrition-based hypothesis of TTM, it would predict that
corn, particularly popcorn or other whole-grained corn products, would carry a fair amount
of lecithin and would therefore be a "bad" food. Corn appears to be rich
in lecithin, though not as bad as egg yolk or soy, and is probably somewhat less per unit
volume than peanuts--although I can't seem to find much info on exact amounts of any of
these. That is, whole grain corn might be a weak bad food, but a bad food
nonetheless.
(Sorry to find another potential bad food. I know, it doesn't
make up for finding the choline bitartrate. But the more we can pin down, the more
potential help we might offer. For example, some people who now think that diet
doesn't affect their TTM may have been eating a lot of X, where it turns out that X is a
"bad" food not yet noticed. Corn might be one of the possible values of X.
Contrariwise, if corn is OK, there might be some subtle differences between corn
and peanuts, for example, that can help narrow things down further, and help pinpoint
exactly what it is that drives people nuts.)
So: has anyone noticed a bad reaction to popcorn? Like, perhaps,
pulling a lot the day after a trip to the movies? Or, to any other corn products?
Like, perhaps, after a binge of corn-on-the-cob in the summer? I think that
products made from corn flour are probably OK, since the oil (and therefore the lecithin)
has been removed, but I'd be interested in
*anything* people can tell me about "Corn, Hair, and Me".
John"
Write
to John - Click Here!
Cocoa
Powder/Chocolate and The JK Diet (7.17.00):
"Hallopals,
I got a report from an experimenting list member who noted that
pulling only seems to happen after eating milk chocolate, but not after pure cocoa powder
(which can be added to other substances). I am grateful for this observation, in part
because I am allergic to cocoa powder (it gives me hives) and can't test the various
components of chocolate.
This may mean two things (more confirmation being necessary, of
course):
1) The dangerous ingredients in "chocolate" may not be cocoa,
but the sugar and the lecithin, both of which have been in cariminated before.
2) Sprinkling pure cocoa powder on other "good" foods like
yogurt might be OK. This may take some of the sting out of the dietary restrictions people
have found necessary. This would mean that the basic avoid list would be simpler:
sugar, caffeine, lecithin-containing foods (peanuts, peanut
butter, soy, legumes in general), and high vitamin D fish (tuna, etc.). Chocolate without
sugar or lecithin would then be fine, although it wouldn't quite be just like Momma used
to make.
I not going to touch anything with cocoa powder in it, so I will
have to rely on the mailing list to check it out. Public reports to the list, or private
ones to me, would be well appreciated.
John"
Write to John
Kender - Click Here!
More on Urge
Stoppers by John Kender (11th July, 2000):
"Hallopals,
AHA! he says. We have two reports from the field that again
indicate that alpha hydroxy acids may be good urge-stoppers.
One person notes that more than one tablespoon of lemon juice in
water (this is more than the juice in 1/2 of a lemon) gives a clear short period of about
1.5 hours of being urge-free. Another person notes that one 250mg pill of choline
bitartrate in the morning and another later in the day substantially reduced pulling, even
to the extent of making a two hour car ride pull-free even after eating known triggers
like peanuts.
Some years ago, there was a rash of reports that "potassium"
pills were urge stoppers, too. Through investigation by several people, this turned out
only to be true of potassium gluconate pills.
My own experimentation indicates that cream of tartar (potassium
bitartrate), and malic acid supplements, also seem to kill the urges.
Yogurt, which contains lactic acid, also seems to be a "good" food.
What these all have in common is that they all contain forms of
alpha hydroxy acids. (These include glycolic, lactic, malic, tartaric, citric, and
gluconic acid, and a few rarer ones, too, such as mandelic acid.) What is interesting is
that AHAs are thought to work by binding with calcium. This interrupts several interesting
biological processes; for example, they allow old skin to
peel off faster. But there is also and indication that calcium
is necessary for various enzymes that modify phospholipids, which are those fats found in
lecithin-containing foods such as egg yolk, peanut, and soy.
So it is starting to look to me like AHAs, taken twice a day,
may be good for pulling. They may work by interfering with the conversion of
"bad" phospholipids into something, perhaps anandamide (the "inner
marijuana"), that may trigger pulling, particularly pulling of the trance-like kind.
One source of the enzymes doing the conversion may be gut yeasts and skin yeasts, but that
still remains to be seen.
As ever, be careful out there. If you are going to experiment
with supplements, please read and stick to the directions on the
labels. All the effects reported above have happened within the suggested ranges of the
supplements as printed. This is not to say they are safe for everyone or in the long term.
Please check with your doctor first.
John"
Urge Stopper
- by John Kender
For the adventurous: Mix 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar, which is just
simply potassium bitartrate, with 1/2 teaspoon fructose, in a cup of water.
You get something that tastes roughly like weak grape Kool Aid. This
appears to have the same effect (although I am still >testing it further); this is the
closest I have found to a urge-stopping magic bullet.
So far, I have gotten two quick reports from people other than me about
using tartrates. One found choline bitartrate to be a good urge stopper, and one
found the cream of tartar mix likewise. What I used as a single daily amount (I
don't know about the other two people): 1 gram of choline bitartrate
(that is, four 250mg or one and a half 650mg tablets)
*or* 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (that's about 1 gram of bitartrate also) and
1 packet (which is about 1/2 teaspoon) fructose in a cup of water. Once a day was
fine for me and there was a delay before it took effect; not sure how much exactly yet,
but it is somewhere on the order of hours. This means, in the meantime (and if it
works at all!), if caught in an urge, it is necessary to use something like witch hazel
topically. A quick scan of the medical literature in MedLine, for adverse affects to
tartrates, indicated that workers in a tartaric acid factory had a higher number of mouth
and throat sores than normal. My guess is also that any excess acidity wouldn't be
good for people with stomach problems, and that it probably is a good idea to minimize the
use of any supplement. There may be other adverse affects that may show up, or may show up
only with long term use; one dentist was concerned that long term use of grape juice was
bad for the teeth. On the other hand, tartrates have been around for as long as
there has been wine; they are what makes grapes tart (duh!). Again, this is not medical
advice. Check with your doctor to be sure if it OK for you to experiment.
- John
Lecithin
Update:
"Hallopals,
While searching for links between lecithin and sebum (hair
grease), I discovered that lecithin has been used as a growth medium for
the yeast I suspect to be involved in pulling, Malassezia. I hadn't found
such a link before because I had been searching under the technical name for
lecithin (phosphatidyl choline). This removes one mystery: lecithin is
in fact linked to Malassezia, and it causes Malassezia to produce large amounts
of hexanol, an alcohol with anesthetic properties (which may be one reason
why pulling doesn't hurt).
Further, it suggests the following. Lecithin is converted in
the body to choline and acetylcholine, and people with depression have been
found to be overly sensitive to acetylcholine, which tends to have calming
properties. My guess is that this is related to the "trance" aspect of TTM.
That is, the common ground between pulling and depression may be the
trance-like state, and the trance may be due to sensitivity to acetylcholine.
The grand conclusion to this is that chocolate, egg yolk,
peanuts, and legumes in general (and probably wheat germ) may not only stimulate
yeast growth causing discomfort in the skin and anesthesia around roots, but
they may also cause the trance. One is then pulled into an abstracted state,
spent in removing irritants, without any pain to serve as a reminder.
This would also help explain why SSRIs are not, in general, effective: the
acetylcholine system is unaffected by them, and one can still trance (even if
one "feels better").
In the meantime, we have received one report that suggests wheat
germ, which is high in lecithin, too, may be a "bad" food. I will
eventually do the experiment, but I am still recovering from the lecithin granule
experiment, but in an unusual way: for the past week, I have been picking
tiny (pinhead or smaller) hard bumps out of my skin, which look like they are due
to the lecithin itself. If so, this could provide a link between TTM
and picking, via the irritating annoyance of various kinds of skin greases
dumped by the body into the follicles.
Standard disclaimer applies: this is all speculation, and if you
experiment, you are on your own. I would be interested in hearing anyone's
responses to lecithin or wheat germ, however.
John jrk@opus.cs.columbia.edu"
What John Kender Says about Pepto
Bismol:
"Hallopals, (Why does John address us this way?)
While digging through MedLine some days ago looking for something else, I discovered
that one of the ways in which medical researchers grow certain intestinal bacteria is on a
mixture of chocolate, egg yolk, and soy. That is, "TTM bad food" agars are
actually helpful for intestinal bugs. The same articles suggest that one approach to going
the other way, that is, discouraging these bugs, is to take bismuth subsalicylate
(Pepto-Bismol). This kills most of the bugs and keeps the survivors from attaching to the
intestinal walls.
The weird idea: Pepto-Bismol might be a good thing for pulling,
particularly if a puller has stomach problems. I haven't tried it, but I would be
interested in hearing from anyone who does. Standard disclaimers apply: not a doctor, this
is not medical advice, check with your doctor first, follow the label restrictions, etc.,
etc.
John jrk@opus.cs.columbia.edu
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