Doing lateral flow tests

[FangsForTheMemory]

Does anyone else have real difficulty doing these as precisely as the instructions say? When I swab my throat I put my head right back so I don't retch, but retch anyway, and how on earth is it possible to avoid touching your teeth if you can't see what you're doing? Same thing with the nasal swab - how are you supposed to get it right up your nostril without touching the sides? Does it matter if you DO touch the sides?

You're supposed to touch the insides of your nostrils as that's what you're swabbing. Most of the tests I have are nose only ones

@dementedpixie the advice a while back was to ignore Flowflex instructions about just swabbing your nose and to swab throat as well as sometimes covid wasn’t being picked up when just swabbing nasally.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/why-you-should-still-be-swabbing-your-throat-with-lateral-flow-tests_uk_61ea96bce4b0c24d4dd4a2b1

Well the nasal only tests picked up dhs covid in December and mine and ds's covid at the end of June this year (orient gene tests)

I have the old NHS tests from ages ago. Never used one up until recently. I retched as soon as the swab touched my tonsils, and I simply could not stick the swab up my nose either. I was worried that I would not have enough of a sample for the test, but I had a blazing positive anyway.
I read that people who struggle to test their small children just get them to blow their nose, and they dip the swab into the snot instead. I can't see how that would not work for adults too.

@dementedpixie you aren’t going to know the times it hasn’t picked it up. You & DC may also have had it in Dec -or any time before or since-but it didn’t pick up. Many people are on their 3rd/4th infection.

@FangsForTheMemory Do you do your throat looking in the mirror? I’m just thinking if you are tipping your head back you can’t really see.

@XenoBitch seriously they swab snot? The reason they say blow your nose before swabbing is to get rid of the snot so you are swabbing the mucus membrane!

@Itsnotwhatitlookslike it has picked it up when we've had symptoms. OK maybe we had it asymptomatically but then again maybe we didn't.

In December we all had PCRs and that confirmed dhs positive LFT and that the rest of us were negative.

Interestingly, here in France, no-one has ever mentioned swabbing inside mouths. I can't say our home tests are 100 percent reliable but they have picked up all the cases in my house, either symptomatic or not.

Most are nasal swab only and you can get saliva ones online.

Anyone using old tests, check the date on them!

I have seen a few posts on MN where a parent has really struggled with sticking the swab up the nose of a baby/toddler, so they said they dipped it in snot instead.

Just did. Still another year before they expire.

snot testing definitely works - I know two children whose covid was picked up this way.