Home Medical Tests
by Nicole Wyatt
CBS 42 News
2007-11-06 20:00:00.0
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When you think of home medical tests more than likely you think of the more popular ones, like pregnancy tests. But there are so many different types out there.
Home medical tests have been around for decades, from telling women they're pregnant to checking for different types of cancer. We found out there are pros and cons to using these devices.
Every day Latonya Long depends on her home blood glucose tests to manage her diabetes.
Latonya says, "I currently take it at least up to seven times a day to make sure they're controlled and make sure I have a good reading."
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The blood glucose test is just one of many home medical tests that people can administer to themselves.
Dr. Robert Posey says, "It’s imperative that diabetics be able to perform home glucose tests because every time you need to check your blood sugar you can't go to the doctor."
Posey has been practicing medicine for nearly 30 years, and while he agrees home medical tests can be necessary, he still has reservations about them.
"The thing that I worry about is that a person may get an answer they want but it may not be absolutely correct answer and they may delay their treatment if they need treatment," said Posey.
This is also a concern of Cathy Flanagan, a women’s health nurse practitioner.
"You can have false negative false positive and if the person is not savvy about the test they could come to the wrong conclusion and therefore go too long and perhaps, for example, a UTI can turn into a kidney infection if it’s not caught in time," said Flanagan.
Though misreading test results is a concern of hers, Nurse Flanagan says she is not against patients using home tests.
"There's nothing wrong with doing a home test I'm not finding fault with a home test but I just feel like a home test needs to be backed up by a clinical test just for the added reassurance of peace of mind," said Flanagan.
Nurse Flanagan says suggesting a trip to the doctor after a home medical test is not discounting the reliability of the tests in general.
"A lot of my patients take home pregnancy tests and usually our clinical findings will reinforce what their answer or test result was," said Flanagan.
With advertisements like unmistakable results and rapid results it can be possible to put too much belief in a company’s claims about their product. To be sure a product is reasonably safe or effective, the U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA) suggested only using a test regulated by them. To check this, you can ask your pharmacist or the vendor selling the test.
Still only being approved by the FDA does not mean a test will give the correct answer 100% of the time, so Nurse Flanagan suggests you "follow the instructions explicitly if there is any discrepancy in what the symptoms are and what the test finds see a provider right away and don't take just the test result at face value get an additional opinion."
Besides following the instructions explicitly, the FDA also suggests to keep good records of your testing and calling the toll-free (1-800) number on your home use test if you have any more questions.
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