Pregnancy tests - how early can I use one?

[Nickiw]

I think I am pregnant but period is not due until 8.12, would a test work now? The only reason I would like to know is that I have a weekend of xmas parties and would like to know if I should abstain. Selfish I know, but do they only work after your period is late?

Most home tests do only work the day your period is due, There is one of i know that does work 3 days b4 your period is due ,its called first response.Tests can be unrelible if done to early(talking from personal experiance).Hope thats of some help!

I agree with Ariel, the pregnancy tests I have used in the past could only be done on the day your period was due at the earliest, otherwise the results would not be accurate as levels of HCG (or is it HGC?) aren't high enough for it to detect. If you think that you might be pregnant, you could still have a drink or two, but just don't go too mad and get totally bladdered. Having said that, I did just before I found out I was pregnant and my little darlings have turned out alright.... Oh no, now I sound like I'm encouraging heavy drinking sessions during pregnancy, which of course I'm not, because as soon as I knew I was pregnant not a drop passed my lips! (I've since been making up for it though!!) Enjoy your parties.

Nickiw - I did a pregnancy test 2 weeks to the day that I conceived - and I got a positive. I think, but I might be wrong, that there is sometimes a risk of a false negative but not a false positive.

I agree with Tinker - if you test and get a positive then at least you know you're pregnant. If you test negative then you still might be pregnant.
If you decided to test I recommend using one of the tests that give you a blue line rather than the type that go pink and then fade away. I ended up using 3 tests (exactly 28 days after the previous period) as I couldn't believe my luck! All of them showed faint positives but IMO the blue ones were a lot less ambiguous than the pink one.
Have you tried asking at a pharmacy (they often have signs up saying they do pregnancy tests), they would probably know the limits and may have more sensitive tests.

The test can occasionally read positive 2 weeks after conception. This happened to me in September and I did another test a few days later and it was negative, then I did 3 more tests over 2 weeks and they were all positive. I was pregnant but unfortunately I misscarried at about 6-8 weeks. The Early Pregnancy Clinic told me that you can get a false negative but never a false positive - the HCG hormones are either there or not, although false readings can occur due to dilution or time of day (strongest early morning) etc. Good luck !!

I know this is a very old thread but I wanted to add to it because I was really interested in the bit about false positives. I had also been led to believe that you can get a false negative by testing early but you cant get a false positive. Well I did. 3 years ago I was feeling sick and tireed all the time and my doctor wanted to do a pregnancy test. I said there was no point; I was a virgin at the time! But he was convinced I was pregnant so did a test and it was positive. God knows how that happened!