Lateral flow tests always positive

[CaputApriDefero]

Mine are always positive. Faint, but clearly positive. And they have been since may. Despite never having a positive PCR. Why are they always positive?? They range from this barely there sort of line to a mid pink one. I've never had a blazing, darker than control line one. But this has been almost six months of positive lateral flows now. How the heck am
I meant to know if I'm contagious or not? Has this happened to anyone else?

These are mine from Weds & Thurs this week following 2 negative pcr’s on Sunday & Monday.

On my photos the line is definitely pink but not as clear when posted here

I think if you’ve had covid you can test positive for up to 90 days afterwards.

@Littlemiss74 they are only valid for 30mins, then you need to throw them away. Lines sometimes develop after this period.

@Hopeisallineed these two both showed within 15 minutes and at that point I took the photos

They definitely don’t have to be obvious to be positive- below is my first positive (mine have always been stark white before so I knew it was a positive), confirmed with PCR later that day, and the second test is 3 days later. Not sure why it’s happening OP, but I agree with you, the posters saying you’re reading it wrong aren’t correct!

@RoseGoldEagle out of interest did you have any symptoms when you did your first lateral flow?

Littlemiss74 I had a very slight sore throat but that was it. DS had tested positive the week before (my PCR at that time was negative), so I was doing regular lateral flows to see if anything changed (and isolating anyway with DS). The day after that weakly positive test my symptoms ramped up and I was feeling pretty awful by the time of the strongly positive one. (Obviously I didn’t really need to take that second one- but I just wanted to get an idea of how obvious the test would be when you had full on signs).

Thank you @RoseGoldEagle hope you are feeling ok now.

What are people doing who’ve had more than one positive lateral flow but negative pcr’s? I need to let my work know when I’ll next be in & I want to visit my Dad in his care home. I have had no real covid symptoms so am starting to think the pcr is right but then my dh & ds have covid so it seems a bit of a coincidence that my lateral flows are positive. I just don’t what to do & it’s doing my head in now, being going on for a week!!

I emailed test & trace to ask them what I should do as i’ve had 2 negative pcr’s in a week but positive lateral flows every day. Here is their reply - more confused than ever now!! Looks they’re confirming we should go with the pcr result.

If acids (like in fruit) can cause the tests to show up as a false positive, perhaps if you experience reflux overnight, that could do the same?

God, do Test and Trace really reply in txt spk? How unprofessional.

@MistandMud

God, do Test and Trace really reply in txt spk? How unprofessional.

I thought that too 'u' instead of you. Not very professional!

I'm not sure I'd rely on test & trace. The woman I spoke to when my DD finally tested positive (multiple positive LFTs, took 4 PCRs before she tested positive - at a time when all the discussion about why this was happening was ongoing), she said she'd never heard of anyone testing positive on a LFT followed by negative on a PCR. I'd heard of a couple of dozen by that stage, just through school!

Test and trace are completely clueless.
I and DS both had positive lateral flow and negative PCR. T+t (119) told us no need to isolate. DS had no symptoms but I did, I very obviously had covid. I eventually got a positive on a postal PCR. If I had listened to T+T I could have contaminated my elderly parents, my immune compromised friend, a family member awaiting surgery, and countless others. Thank goodness I just didn't trust them and kept away from people until I had a proper result.

@Tinysnickers this is very interesting, how long was it before you got a positive pcr? I’ve had 2 at the start of last week both negative, followed by positive lateral flows for 5 days. When I contacted them for advice on what to do this was the reply I got. It feels like a standard response, like they don’t think there’s anything wrong with having 5 positive lateral flows because the pcr is always the result that should be followed!
My boss is going to ask me tomorrow what’s happening and when I can go back to the office & I really don’t know what to say.
I’m going to do one more home pcr test & that’s it. I’m actually getting sick of all this now.

@DaxtheDestroyer I agree, I didn’t even find the email response they sent me coherent & it didn’t answer my question about the fact I’ve had 5 positive lateral flows! Would you mind telling me the timescales for your dd’s 4 pcr tests, how long after the first one did she eventually get a positive and did she have any symptoms?

I finally got a positive from a postal test I did on day 7. But my LF were strongest when I did the first 2 pcrs. I'm pretty sure they went to the dodgy lab though. There was no way I didn't have it, the lines on my LF were so dark they were almost black.

Baffling. Lack of test clarity is one of the reasons Covid is spreading so much.

[quote Littlemiss74]@DaxtheDestroyer I agree, I didn’t even find the email response they sent me coherent & it didn’t answer my question about the fact I’ve had 5 positive lateral flows! Would you mind telling me the timescales for your dd’s 4 pcr tests, how long after the first one did she eventually get a positive and did she have any symptoms?[/quote]
It was over a couple of weeks. From the time of the first positive lateral flow to the final positive PCR was 2 and a half weeks I think, I'm not sure she was even still infectious by the time she got the positive result.
She didn't have any symptoms throughout, except for a mild sore throat one day. All the negative PCRs were done at a drive-in, the positive one was a postal one, as we'd heard by then about rumoured issues.
This was several weeks ago now and if she does lateral flows now, she still gets positive results.

🙏 I’m so glad I’ve just found this entire thread.
It’s not just me! I’m not crazy!
Had covid end of May, it’s now January and I still get faint positives on Flowflex nasal LFTs. Always negative PCRs since the bout of covid in May.
Wish someone could tell me why!

Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel
That's not " clearly positive" at all. The guides state that even if there is a slight faint line on the T it's a negative

Your post is the wrong information.

Have you even read the leaflet guide? Any line, no matter how faint, is a positive.

Baffling. Lack of test clarity is one of the reasons Covid is spreading so much

Or Omicron has made covid a chronic disease .

My son tests positive (some grey, some pink) in the mornings (no symptoms, followed by neg PCR), but negative in the evenings. We always test in the evenings now. I think it’s something to do with acidic mouth conditions in the morning.

@Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel

That's not " clearly positive" at all. The guides state that even if there is a slight faint line on the T it's a negative. Both lines are clearly solid if it's positive. I have Covid atm. It's fucking horrible. My tests were all solid lines. PCR then confirmed positive. You're reading them wrong.

^ this.