To be seriously concerned a nurse didn’t know this?!

[CrossedToTheDarkSide]

Just been to the doctors and seen a practise nurse. I was prescribed antibiotics for a suspected minor localised infection. The nurse asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant. I told her there was a chance as we are currently TTC but that I wouldn’t know for a couple of weeks only half way through my cycle (cycles hit and miss but know I just ovulated so could be literally a couple of days pregnant maybe)
She told me this affected which antibiotic I could have so I needed to do a pregnancy test first and then depending on the results come back and get one of two types.
I told her I couldn’t do a test yet as it wouldn’t show anything and I would have to wait nearly 2 weeks til I am due on.
She then proceeds to say “no, these new tests are very sensitive... You can take one any time and it will tell you”
IS IT JUST ME?! Surely it is very worrying a nurse doesn’t know I can’t take a test two days after I’ve ovulated and magically know if i’m pregnant?! I am genuinely worried about the advice she could be giving people...

Any nurse that made those comments needs her training updating. You don't need to be a fertility specialist to get the problem.

Exactly SirVixofVixHall. That is the entire reason for the OP. I can't believe how many posters have completely missed the point.

Exactly SirVix, pretty poor on the nurse's part.

Hey guys, thanks for the reply.
I was upset that I don’t think the nurse did a good enough job to protect me if I am pregnant.
If I had gone away today and done a test and gone straight back and said it was negative she would have happily given me the “non-pregnancy safe” antibiotics. However I am 99% sure even if I am lucky enough to be pregnant it wouldn’t show yet on a test.
Therefore as I was saying I could be I was shocked she was still willing to give me the “unsafe” antibiotics as long as an over the counter (or any test) said I wasn’t pregnant.
Didn’t want to start a row about nurses, they are AMAZING!! I am just a very anxious person about doctors in general and am very worried about getting it wrong as have been TTC and facing issues for a long time!

Nurses who can prescribe are called Nurse Practitioners.

Er, no. Nurses who have done the Nurse Practitioner course are called Nurse Practitioners. Nurses who have done the Prescribing course are called nurses who can prescribe. Assuming we're in the UK.

Anyway, OP is right. If she's mid-cycle, and depending on when she last had sex, it's possible that she may be pregnant tomorrow when she isn't today, even. So the right course of action was to take the safe ABx anyway and it's lucky she knew that and insisted. Practice nurses are a right old mixed bag - some of them are fab and some of them are useless - and primary care is becoming so awful as an occupational environment that there probably won't be very many of either sort soon.

Good luck TTC, OP!

My MIL is a nurse and these are the stupid type of things she says daily to me. I seriously wonder about her. I hope that nurse training has improved in recent years as she was trained back in the dark ages. I believe she has had to do a re- accreditation every few years.

Often a nurse does a prescription but a doctor signs it. I've had this before.

She should have given you safe antibiotics if there was a doubt. A friend took the test and it was negative and two weeks later it tested positive. She had already taken the medication. Thank goodness nothing happened to the embryo.

Hug isn’t produced until the blastocyst implants. This takes at least 5 days and then the HCP slowly goes up. You will not test. Positive 2 days after ovulation.

awomanwhogetsthingsdone Thank you very much for the correction. I have reported the post requesting it is deleted since it gives false "information". I will be sure to check my facts in future.

Honestly I'm not surprised. I had a conversation with a GP who insisted a very short luteal phase doesn't affect fertility at all. Kept referring to it as 'irregular cycle' - no, no that's not what I'm talking about. How can an embryo implant if there's not enough time??!
Argh, sorry had to get that off my chest

Also my friend is a nurse and didn't realise that your feet can get bigger during a pregnancy due Relaxin softening ligaments and your arch dropping. She thought the idea was hilarious and said it's just because you get 'fatter' feet.

Also my friend is a nurse and didn't realise that your feet can get bigger during a pregnancy due Relaxin softening ligaments and your arch dropping. She thought the idea was hilarious and said it's just because you get 'fatter' feet.

Oh come on! That's pretty specialist stuff, unless she specialises in ante natal care!

Simple answer was to do what you suggested she did - err on the side of caution and prescribe the antibiotic that is safe to use in pregnancy.
No need to faff with tests at all.

@saraclara is it specialist? My mum who is not a health professional knew about it in the 80s. The nurse in question has 2 small kids herself.

Er, no. Nurses who have done the Nurse Practitioner course are called Nurse Practitioners. Nurses who have done the Prescribing course are called nurses who can prescribe. Assuming we're in the UK.

I have a Nurse Practitioner (her title) at my surgery and she can prescribe. Her full title is Advanced Nurse Practitioner.

It's probably part of a protocol that a pregnancy test has to be done before certain drugs are prescribed. We have to pregnancy test every single girl over 11 who's going to theatre. Even though there is no way they could be pregnant.

I have nothing to add except to say that I have just seen an Advanced Nurse Practitioner at my surgery and he was so kind, so understanding and so responsive to me that I cried.

As you were. :)

Best of luck OP.

I know a nurse who is extremely thick and I have to point out very basic things to them every day, he lacks serious common sense and logic. I do wonder about his patients but assumed when it came to medical knowledge he knew his stuff... eek

No, sorry, @Fraxion, I wasn't saying Nurse Practitioners can't prescribe, I was saying that nurses don't have to become Nurse Practitioners in order to be able to prescribe. Nurse Practitioners typically have wider and deeper skillsets than practice nurses (although many of the older practice nurses are also very skilled and experienced but lack the title). People shouldn't assume because their practice nurse is also a prescriber that they have that breadth of knowledge.

That seems an overreaction, @CustardySeargeant, although MNHQ were certainly very prompt to take it down, so you probably did the right thing.

Also my friend is a nurse and didn't realise that your feet can get bigger during a pregnancy due Relaxin softening ligaments and your arch dropping. She thought the idea was hilarious and said it's just because you get 'fatter' feet

This is a poor example, this is what midwives are taught, not nurses. Just because your mum knew in the 80s, great anecdote.

@mynewkindle - relaxin exists in all bodies male and female and women often have highest levels either after ovulation or in the first trimester. My feet (and body) haven’t become noticeably bigger in pregnancy as I followed midwives advice to walk and exercise drink water and control diet (especially salt intake). They said the majority of problems women relate to relaxin are actually the result of weight gain and water retention.

I had this exact same conversation with a nuclear med technician before I had a procedure involving a (mildly) radioactive substance. She said their pg tests would tell no matter how pg I was......... I had to point out that I was under 10 dpo and no it might well not!

She was just checked you aren't pregnant.

No she didn't. She did a test which would not have picked up whether the OP was pregnant or not, because any pregnancy would have been of only two days' gestation. When the test was negative she would have prescribed antibiotics not suitable for pregnancy, when the OP might actually have been pregnant. She could have made a mistake which could have had dire consequences for someone's pregnancy because she believed that the test that she was offering would detect a pregnancy of forty eight hours.

I gathered nurses don’t cover as much as I thought when one was adamant she’d given me X type of drug, as requested by a Dr. I knew it was a completely different type of drug. I was alone, at night and in pain after surgery. I had to cry to make her understand.

It’s ok to not know, it’s not ok to act as if you do know when you don’t. I’d never claim such a thing in my own professional career, which is similarly regulated and deemed unethical.

No, sorry, @Fraxion, I wasn't saying Nurse Practitioners can't prescribe, I was saying that nurses don't have to become Nurse Practitioners in order to be able to prescribe. Nurse Practitioners typically have wider and deeper skillsets than practice nurses (although many of the older practice nurses are also very skilled and experienced but lack the title).

Well you weren't exactly clear in what you meant when you shot down a previous poster.

Some nurses can prescribe, yes. They have to be a certain grade and gain a certain qualification though.

As I understand, even a blood test wouldn't be able to tell you if you were pregnant 2dpo??? We have the technology / science I'm sure but out bodies work in such a way that you just cannot tell 2dpo!!