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False postives on rapid strep test?


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The reason it happened in our case is that the nurse took two swabs and swabbed them both at the same time.

 

My pediatrician ALWAYS does the 2 swabs at one time, and with the amount that my dd kicks, scrams, and bites during it, I'm surprised they ever even reach her tonsils. I think they do them both at once to avoid 2 separate struggles with the child. However, I can see how 2 thorough separate swabs would be best. Just hard to convince a scared child of that.

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CAN you immagine...since there was only a slight pink reacation and he didn't get that, if he didn't get a good swab...

you would have gotten sent home...no abx....and maybe you'd be on a jouney like ours....

and yes the only time(and maybe a weird annomily) a pregnancy test would be wrong is if it came up neg...(not producing enought hormones yet) but if it is pos....you can expect a gift in a few months!!!!

 

 

My guess would be that the swab was not done well enough, too.

 

So simple...it's probably that he didn't get a good swab. It's not like she sits there and just opens her mouth. After minutes of screaming, crying, covering her mouth with two hands, we lay her down on the table and he struggles to get the swabbing-I think she even kicked him. I wonder if that is why the rapid test appeared so faintly.

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This just happened to us. The rapid on my three year old came back positive, but the culture came back negative. The reason it happened in our case is that the nurse took two swabs and swabbed them both at the same time. The culture swab obviously did not get a good sample. Just FYI- it is best if they do each swab separately (not two swabs to do a rapid and a culture) and make sure they get a good sample from both tonsils.

 

When you get a faint line on a rapid test, it is still positive. It is like with a pregnancy test, if you do it really early in the pregnancy you can get just a very faint line, but still positive. I think that people reading the rapid tests sometimes do not wait long enough or scutinize it enough and if they did they would see a faint line. Years ago I knew my child had strep and the NP belived me. When she read the rapid she saw the faintest line and commented that many nurses would have mistakingly interpreted that as a negative.

 

Colleen

 

 

Colleen,

The ped did the swabs at the same time-I've never seen anyone do them separate (but in their defense-my daughter flails, kicks, cover her mouth-it's really a struggle to get them). CAn't wait to tell my doc that everyones opinion is just simply he didn't get a good sample. He saw the faint line and pointed it out to me. It was there. My ped thought maybe we should do titers to see if she's had strep in the last few months to confirm. Do you think it's worth it? Right now I fininshed her ABX but do not have her on anything else.

 

Thanks, Amy

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