Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Preparing for your appointment
By Mayo Clinic staffYour first appointment to start treating your self-injury may be with a school nurse or counselor, your family doctor or a general practitioner. But because self-injury often requires specialized mental health care, you may be referred to a mental health provider for evaluation and treatment.
What you can do
Being an active participant in your care can help your recovery efforts. One way to do this is by preparing for your first appointment. Think about what your needs and goals for treatment are. Also, write down a list of questions to ask. These may include:
- Why can't I get better on my own?
- How do you treat self-injury?
- Are there medications that might help?
- How often will we meet?
- What should I do if I have an urge to self-injure between therapy sessions?
- How long will treatment take?
- What can I do to help myself?
What to expect from your doctor
Your doctor is likely to ask you a number of questions about your self-injury and emotional state. Your doctor may ask such questions as:
- When did you first begin harming yourself?
- How frequently do you injure yourself?
- What methods do you use to harm yourself?
- What feelings and thoughts do you have before, during and after self-injury?
- What triggers you to harm yourself?
- What makes you feel better or worse?
