Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 10:29:40 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Lateral Flow Tests

Started by bgmnts, September 28, 2021, 02:44:56 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

bgmnts

Have to start taking these despite only being in the office once a week for half a day.

Where? How? Why? What? When?

jobotic

Why not? You can order them for free, or pick them up wherever your council is dishing them out. For now anyway.

I've done eight this month.

bgmnts

I have heard your shove them up your nose until you touch your brain like mummification or lobotomies.

I dont want that.

I actually work for the council and they said they dont have any in there because you know it's the council. Do the chemists give em away free?


Egyptian Feast

I have to do one every time I go to the office (thankfully only once a month at the moment) and I always forget just how unpleasant an experience it is. This weirdo enjoys it though.

Quote from: @fessholeI'm addicted to lateral flow tests namely the nose swabbage. The sweet sensation of the poking and the ensuing sneeze is a legal high for me. I'm worried I might end up with a nose similar to that of a seasoned cocaine user.

Yuk.

amateur

Been doing them since last year and thoroughly used to them by now.

For me, best way is rubbing it on the smooth part of your sinus at the back of the nose, rather than where you've got nose hairs etc, as that's not too pleasant. 15 seconds, get it in the juice, squirt and sorted.

I might go do one now, hang on.

FAKE EDIT: Negative!

jobotic

I don't like it but it's not that bad. The latest ones we got are shorter and are just for your nose. Which is much better than making yourself gag by sticking them down the back of your throat. That I do hate.

amateur

I only do the nose, never the throat. It's too difficult to get it right and you can spoil the result if you get it on your tongue etc.

Did some PCR tests early days and they said stick to the nose if the throat is too tricky. Never came back as inconclusive.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: amateur on September 28, 2021, 04:32:13 PM
I only do the nose, never the throat. It's too difficult to get it right and you can spoil the result if you get it on your tongue etc.

Did some PCR tests early days and they said stick to the nose if the throat is too tricky. Never came back as inconclusive.
You can do that? Trying to swab my tonsils, without touching the rest of my gob is the only part that really pisses me off about them. It's like trying to thread a needle with kitchen tongs.

Cuellar

I had a batch that said to do both nose and tonsils, but the latest batch are just nosers. AND they come with the liquid already in the little tube thing.

Fambo Number Mive

Quote from: Cuellar on September 28, 2021, 06:18:09 PM
I had a batch that said to do both nose and tonsils, but the latest batch are just nosers. AND they come with the liquid already in the little tube thing.

Yes those are the newest ones I've been getting as well. It's nice how they've refined things to make it a bit easier. You only have to wait 15 minutes for the new ones I've been getting but can read the result any time between 15 to 30 minutes which is good.

olliebean

Quote from: bgmnts on September 28, 2021, 03:04:14 PM
I have heard your shove them up your nose until you touch your brain like mummification or lobotomies.

I dont want that.

You have to do that with the PCR ones too, but the swabs on the lateral flow ones are quite pointy, which makes it a more fraught experience.

Fambo Number Mive

When you order them online they come really quickly. I've always found pushing the swab up my nose to be not too bad.

Psybro

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on September 28, 2021, 06:22:18 PM
Yes those are the newest ones I've been getting as well. It's nice how they've refined things to make it a bit easier. You only have to wait 15 minutes for the new ones I've been getting but can read the result any time between 15 to 30 minutes which is good.

I wasted a few of the old style ones because the twisty caps on the fluid bottle were fiddly and getting them off would cause spillage.

Also I had my tonsils removed in childhood and struggled with the idea of swabbing where something I've forgotten having should be.

amateur

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on September 28, 2021, 04:34:06 PM
You can do that? Trying to swab my tonsils, without touching the rest of my gob is the only part that really pisses me off about them. It's like trying to thread a needle with kitchen tongs.

Yeah, that's a nightmare. Stick to the nose and you'll be golden. I could never do the tonsils without a mirror so it's made it way easier.

olliebean

Quote from: Psybro on September 28, 2021, 08:26:23 PMAlso I had my tonsils removed in childhood and struggled with the idea of swabbing where something I've forgotten having should be.

So did I, but one of them grew back in adulthood so I've got that one for reference when swabbing the other side.

flotemysost

They don't bother me. Did them every day in the run-up to seeing my parents earlier in the year (and again every day while I was staying with them), still do them regularly if I'm going into the office or socialising closely with people etc. Having a magnifying mirror (like a shaving mirror) is handy for the tonsil swab if you're doing it.

I did once accidentally shove the swab too hard up my nose when I was doing a PCR at a testing centre last year and bled on it, so don't do that.

Cloud

Grab em while you can if you care about that sort of thing - they're rationing them from next month and charging from next year...

Did one earlier as I just found out someone I was sat in a stuffy training room with Thu+Fri tested positive Sat.  Dead soon perhaps, but so far negative. I also just had a flu jab so won't be quite sure if anything that comes up are side effects or a sign to get a PCR

We can only get the old style here but they're not too bad. If you get these (with the tonsil swab) you can pin down your tongue with a pen or the arm of a fork or whatever

gilbertharding

I've done a few, only up the nose. I'm not convinced I've done it right, because it's too unpleasant to follow the instructions to the letter. However, I only go to the shops once a fortnight, and sit in the office several metres from the only two other people who work here a few days a week... so I'm not worried.

I do wonder why they didn't devise a test which can be swabbed from spit, or even hocking a loogie into a tissue or something like that.

Dex Sawash


If you wee and the stream splits out sideways, can you just swab the rogue stream?

bgmnts

Barely even got anywhere without almost vomiting but the test didnt come out as void with 15 mins to go so i'll take that.

popcorn

You have to shove em up yer bumhole.

Then yer schnoz.

Then bumhole again. Then gob.

For the test to be accurate.

amateur

They're not meant to be that fun.

hamfist

Been putting mine down me old herbert, is that wrong ?

jobotic

It's not right, but who's to say if it's wrong?

Thursday

I've been doing lateral flow tests for work, but this week a couple of people tested positive so we've been asked to do a PCR test in addition. I know obviously the results will be analyzed more carefully, but I was surprised it was basically the exact same process, where I'm trusted to stick a swab up my nose and at the back of my mouth myself.

I'm really trying to do it properly, but it also feels like I shouldn't be trusted to, because my reflex will just be to pull away when it gets uncomfortable, so I still have the same worry that it'll result in a negative when it's actually a positive because I wasn't thorough enough or didn't do it properly somehow. Seemed a bit pointless, although I appreciate it's not really feasible to have a fully qualified nurse taking every test.

Chedney Honks

Similar feelings at my end for months. In fact, the only time I really felt I did it confidently and adequately was when I tested positive (two LFTs and then one PCR). My GP mate said if you're too gentle with the nose, it'll tickle and you'll sneeze, which was my experience throughout. I was a bit bolder when I tested positive because I thought I had it and didn't want my cowardice or tickly big nose to override a positive result. My advice is to get it to the required depth and then do the twists. I didn't sneeze for those three tests and all positive. Imagine if I'd done it properly previously, probably would be positive a hundred more times! 😂😂😂

flotemysost

Thanks for the advice Chedders!

I did one this morning before going to the office and the little foil seal over the tube of fluid just wouldn't budge when I tried to peel it off, like an especially stubborn Yakult. Ended up piercing it with a (clean) pair of scissors as it was the last one in the pack, obviously not ideal though. I miss the old tonsil scrubbing ones, you knew where you were with them.

Ferris

Advice here is put the swab thing 2cm up each nostril and do 5 swirls round the outside and that's it. The old "ram it directly into brain" thing is reserved for PCRs.

I wonder if we get the same kits - is the ones from abbot health?

Ferris

Edit: these ones.



That's a time lapse gif of it in action, pretty good I thought
https://imgur.com/kVsYC7y