I'm not sure if this is the right place for this on the forums. Hopefully it belongs under therapy.

I've been wanting to work through the health anxiety self help program at the CCI website, but I'm really bad at sticking with something like this long enough to finish it. I tried to get my therapist interested in doing the material with me, or at least checking in to make sure I was making progress, but of course she wants to do her own thing (non-structured of course, which is a whole 'nother story). So I thought to try to stick with the program, I would post about my progress, and thoughts about program, as I work through the modules.

I've started the program before, but never finished it. I'll start back at the beginning again, since it's been a while since I've read it. If you haven't seen it before, it is at:

http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/reso...cfm?Info_ID=53

Module 1

This module is mostly background information and questions about what your health is like, what your fears are, and defining when health anxiety goes beyond the typical experience and becomes a problem.

Answering the questions, I did not consider social functioning to be part of my health. I actually don't have much social contact outside of work. One of my co-workers years ago thought my health anxiety was an unconscious way of trying to make connections with people.

I checked Very Often for almost all the worries except for avoidance and sharing symptoms with family and friends.

This chapter does a good job in covering the negative affects of health anxiety, particularly the ones that may not be obvious to people who have never had HA - financial costs from doctors' visits and missed work, difficulty concentrating at work and lost work time due to appointments, and depression. One thing I think they missed in the category of negative effects on your relationships with doctors is the embarrassment. It's really hard to go back into the doctor with another concern, even when I've called to ask a question of the phone nurse and the nurse has asked me to come in for an examination as a result of the question.

When asked to write down how health anxiety has affected me, I listed the embarrassment, financial costs, depression, time spent on Google or body checking, and difficulty focusing at work and missed work time for appointments.