Nasopharyngeal swab

[asmallplace]

I've just spoken to a dr who I live with and he's really shocked that people are being asked to do their own tests. I had to do a nasopharyngeal swab on my son, and did it wrong. Test came back inconclusive. Going back again today. He has just given me a lesson on where the nasopharyngeal cavity is and the specific part of the cavity that the swab needs to be taken from. He's on the phone to one of his colleagues and I can hear him talking about it. His colleague said 'are you joking?!' When he realised they were asking people to do their own swabs. His words were 'you can't possibly expect people to do that to their children?'

Anyone else find this really worrying? Lots of false negatives. Lots of inconclusive results. He was under the impression that all of the test sites had military or trained professionals doing it.

A tricky one as the people doing the testing would be at significant risk.

Thoughts?

[Babdoc]

I doubt anyone would do it properly on themselves or their children. It isn’t a “swab”, it’s a deep mucosal puncture, and it’s bloody painful if done correctly!
I had two, while ill with Covid in hospital - the first by a nurse, then a repeat by a doctor, who said they were getting too many false negatives from the nurses being too gentle and not stabbing deep enough. I may say, both were excruciating.
I did read of an alternative mouth swab that claimed high accuracy without needing a mucosal puncture, but I don’t know if it’s been independently validated.

[asmallplace]

@Babdoc I just went and took dr with me to do the test again. He was a bit shocked that they didn't have a different size of swab for kids. My son is only tiny and he said the swab was the size you'd use on a fully grown adult. I had to hold his arms down whilst he got the swabs from each nostril. He made me feel better about having done it wrong the first time and said i could've actually hurt him more than I needed to... weird experience

[Astrabees]

This is why I won't have a test done even if I get ill, no one is going to stab me up the nose!

[Bol87]

From what I’ve read on here, some test centres are dropping swabs through the window for you to do yourself..

[raviolidreaming]

Did the doctor colleague really think the military were doing them?!

[asmallplace]

@raviolidreaming they are in some places?

[asmallplace]

92 mobile sites across the uk which are military run www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/mobile-coronavirus-testing-stations-set-up-across-region-1-6637095

[raviolidreaming]

I wasn't sure these were still happening, so that's me told!

[OceanPotion]

I had one last week, it really wasn't that bad but it was done by a hospital consultant. Definitely not something you would want to do on yourself (impossible) or a child without training (impractical)

[nex18]

I thought it was a nasopharyngeal swab but when my dd was tested as part of the ONS research it said to swab one inch into the nostril. I have a paediatric nursing background so wasn’t phased by the idea of doing a nasopharyngeal swab, I’ve no idea how to do a puncture though. I presume that’s not what they’re asking for with community testing if the information says go in one inch.

[asmallplace]

@nex18 apparently you can do both. Housemate was saying nasopharyngeal is much more accurate than a nasal swab and nasal swab is much more likely to give a false negative or unclear result (as I experienced!)

[drinkingwineoutofamug]

I've got the home swab kit. See below for kids.
I normally swab adults at work. Had it myself and yes it's uncomfortable.
Having it again as I have symptoms myself .

[drinkingwineoutofamug]

It's also the same sized swab for adults and children that I've been sent

[tobee]

Anyone know how new easier diagnostic tests are going in development?

I saw someone post about a sweat test but I think that was still in very early days of development.

It's just if more and more people are likely to have to self test....

[Elouera]

I used to collect these exact swabs in another setting- also for viruses. Staff needed a training session with slides/demo on dummy etc, then to be observed to physically do several tests, before they were deemed competent to collect them! We also used to collect several inches inside at the back, not 1inch in like the photo above!

I too would be interested to know how many are inconclusive or even show a negative result. I'd also like to know the stats of the results from medically collected swabs vs self swabbing!

[asmallplace]

@Elouera my housemate who has taken many of these swabs over 35 years is extremely worried about people self testing. He said if you just shove it in your nostril it's essentially a snot sample and could very easily be a false neg, especially when parents quite understandably are over cautious about hurting their kids. Hmm.

[Adirondack]

I had to do my own test and also swabbed my DC. I just stuck it up one nostril and wiggled it about. It didn’t hurt. Bit worried I didn’t do them properly especially with people up the thread using the word ‘puncture’. There was no puncturing going on.

[MrsFezziwig]

I’ve been posting about this since I had a test on 1st May (the day we reached the magic 100k test level).

It came back negative, as I expected (just a combination of weird symptoms) but couldn’t do the throat swab properly (I was gagging too much) and the nasal one said just insert the swab in one inch. Pre-swab info said I could opt for someone to do the test on me at the testing centre, so I was going to choose this as I know I’m very gippy, but when I got there this wasn’t offered.

[Clymene]

I haven't got any tonsils