The rapid test fails 50% of the time, according to the CDC. This, I heard from my pediatrician. And that is why she didn’t bother to test my daughter. She knew my daughter had H1N1, knew my whole family had it, and said the test wasn’t necessary. We were terribly ill.
A week later, I saw the physcian’s assistant at my doctor’s office. He refused to believe I had had the swine flu, because I hadn’t had the test. Idiot. I didn’t need a test to know how sick I had been.
There was an article here on FR that said the rapid test is inaccurate. DVDMom posted it. You can look for it, if you want.
Thanks for your comments... I know not many people believe me either as my family caught it in early April (right when it started hitting the news). All I know is that my husband and children have never been so sick in their lives... As a parent you probably know how hard it is to keep a child in bed when they are sick. Well, I had NO COMPLAINTS from my kids who were in bed for 1 1/2 weeks!
My one daughter (after about 5 days) decided she couldn’t stand being in bed and felt “better” (plus her fever had gone down a lot). I (stupidly) let her sit outside on the front porch for some fresh air (it was nice out), she decided to walk around the block (which I specifically told her NOT to do, BTW — ugh, kids! LOL). The next day — back in bed again, and then also had a horrid sore throat to boot. She ended up in bed for a extra week.
Me? Well, the meds I’m on regularly hid the aches and the fever and it hit me in the chest after a week of taking care of the rest of my brood! I have to tell you that I literally thought I really was going to die (coughing up blood and HORRID pain with every breath). Thank God I went to the doctor when I did — they think I had a secondary infection on top of the virus (which at the time they said was “some kind of flu going around”), and in my case a really strong antibiotic was also prescribed, along with inhalers. No anti-virals because they figured we’d all been sick too long already (plus as I said this was before they realized it wasn’t JUST in Mexico).
Thanks for the info on the rapid test DVD Mom put up. I’m sure it’s probably in my pings somewhere, I’ll go check for it. I haven’t been here in a while...
Semi-silver lining for me — they ordered a Chest CT for me and found a growth on my adrenal gland by “accident”. (I go in tomorrow to see if it’s grown at all over the last 6 months...)
Sorry this post was so long, and I may have repeated things I already posted... Worrisome night for me here.
http://www.drugtestexpert.com/?p=1737
Swine flu test results are unreliable, WHO warns (Sydney Morning Herald)
By Drug Test Expert
SOME Australians may have been falsely diagnosed with human swine flu while others with the disease may have been sent home with a negative result because the laboratory test used to identify the potentially deadly virus is only about 90 per cent accurate.
Read the rest here:
Swine flu test results are unreliable, WHO warns (Sydney Morning Herald)