Covid test you do yourself -question

[wishesuponastar]

My 19 yr old daughter has to get a COVID test before going back to college. I found out CVS has the test at their drive up window and that you do the nasal test yourself with their guidance. Have you or know anyone who did this and is it hard to do to yourself and is it painful?

we are trying to find free tests in our area and this is one that I found at CVS. There is maybe another place which doesn’t open again until 8 am Saturday to see if you do the test yourself or not?
Thank you for any info.

 

[brockash]

My 19 yr old daughter has to get a COVID test before going back to college. I found out CVS has the test at their drive up window and that you do the nasal test yourself with their guidance. Have you or know anyone who did this and is it hard to do to yourself and is it painful?
Thank you for any info.

Yes, my brother and my son...I don't think they're really accurate and honestly wouldn't waste time to get one,unless you're just looking for a negative. They didn't give any instructions on how high to stick it etc., so no, naturally neither of them hurt themselves...they just swabbed it around the bottom part of their nose. My SIL, Dad, Stepmom all tested positive- Das and stepmom very careful, only exposure is to my brother, sil and their 1 year old son...everyone came back positive with regular tests, but my brother. He went and did the cvs one and it came back negative.

 

[pxidst119]

My DD has used CVS to go back to school. Very easy and not painful. Her school uses the same type of self administered test to test the students upon arrival and then weekly.

 

[disneychrista]

The test should never be PAINFUL. I’ve has 4 tests now and none were painful. The first two they seemed to go higher than the second two. Not sure if it was just the person who did them or if they’ve changed the protocol for how “deep” they swab.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I've done 2 at CVS, 2 at Walgreens, all drive-up, since last April. Those I did just to check. And then recently, due to being exposed to a COVID positive, my wife and I each did 3 drive-up tests over a 14 day quarantine at a State of Illinois testing center at a large Chicago area race track parking lot. All 7 of these were self administered nasal swabs. If not being done correctly, the attendant said what to do. All were very easy, not painful a bit.

All were negative.

 

[MomOfDisneyPrincess]

A coworker did a self administered test. No one monitoring, just drove up and followed the written instructions. She got a negative, but quarantined anyway, since she was sick. She did not feel confident about the results and neither did her sister who is a nurse.

 

[ohiomom28]

I did one at CVS. They gave me a pack of 4 Qtips to swab with. That is different than what we normally use at work. I've been swabbed at minimum 100 times and that's the only Qtip I've used. Results were sent around 48 hrs. This was in October.

 

[Kitty 34]

My SIL did one from CVS back in November and it came back positive which really surprised her as she was just getting the test done as she had missed 2 days of work because of her usual migraine headaches. So she stayed home obviously but luckily her DH and three sons never got Covid from her.

As far as "pain" goes my oldest DS and later my DH had tests done both from doctor offices and both decided it felt like they had gotten some brain cells on the swab.

 

[godisney14]

If the Qtip isn’t going deep enough, you may as well just expect a negative result. I doubt many people doing self-administered test is sampling deep enough as a medical professional would do. My take on self-administered test (for those that require a test by work or school, etc.) is that it’s an easy way to get a negative if you need one.

Here’s some info on proper swabbing.
https://health.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/coronavirus-testing.html

 

[Moliphino]

I've done one. The person there told me how far to stick it up and observed to make sure it was far enough.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I just recently had to do this one, I definitely didn't shove it back in there as far or scrape around as hard as the person who administered my first test.

 

[Immadismom]

I've done one. The person there told me how far to stick it up and observed to make sure it was far enough.

This. DD and I did the CVS tests together. The lady at the window directed us, and at the end of the swabbing, she had us press the swab straight back & hold it for about 10-15 seconds. We both tested positive. DH ordered an at home test from our health insurance. I watched him swab, and the instructions indicated that the entire cotton tip had to be inserted until it could no longer be seen. He also tested positive.

For what it’s worth, DD had a test about 2 months prior to the positive one, administered at an urgent care. The nurse told us that they had improved from the original tests and no longer had to “touch the brain”. I have also heard of some tests that now swab the inside of the cheek, along with China now testing rectally.

 

[cobright]

My 19 yr old daughter has to get a COVID test before going back to college. I found out CVS has the test at their drive up window and that you do the nasal test yourself with their guidance. Have you or know anyone who did this and is it hard to do to yourself and is it painful?

we are trying to find free tests in our area and this is one that I found at CVS. There is maybe another place which doesn’t open again until 8 am Saturday to see if you do the test yourself or not?
Thank you for any info.

I did the CVS test and it was no sweat. It only goes an inch up the nose, not like the original one that feels like they're trying to put a hole out the back of my head.