Answering Questions About The Hair Drug Test

October 28th, 2009   8 Comments

(Note: The PDT-90 Test does NOT accept body hair submissions. This article only applies to the HairConfirm Standard/Express product lines.)

The hair follicle drug test is a powerful drug test and one that people have many questions about. One particularly interesting area is the difference between body hair and head hair when you are testing for drugs. What should you consider when deciding what type of hair to submit for your hair home drug test?

The first thing you should ask yourself is what time frame you are interested in. If you are concerned about drug use in the past 90 days, head hair is what you probably want to submit. In most cases it is easier to collect a sample of head hair in the necessary quantity – 90 to 120 strands – than body hair. When collecting body hair you want to collect more than you would when collecting hair, and provide at the very least 100 strands.

However, body hair submissions in a hair drug test situation do have one major advantage – body hair can tell you, if you provide an inch and a half of it in length, a year of drug use history. If you are worried that your child used cocaine in 4 months ago, you may want to submit body hair instead of head hair for your hair follicle drug test.

The reason you can get more information by submitting body hair is that body hair grows more slowly than hair from the head. With either submission, the laboratory will only analyze the inch and a half closest to the root. This is true even if your hair submission is long hair from the head. But this also means that when you choose what hair to submit for your hair follicle drug test, you should keep in mind that body hair grows slowly – it might not be wise to submit body hair if you want to find out about drug use a month ago.

Remember when choosing what type of hair to submit that you cannot mix the two types together when mailing your hair drug test to the lab.

We hope you found this hair drug test information valuable in selecting the type of home drug test you are interested in. Please direct any questions to cs@homehealthtesting.com or call us at 910-815-0209.

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The Oxycodone Test – How/What It Tests For

October 22nd, 2009   Add Comment

This month is National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month.  In that spirit we are going to focus on prescription drugs and prescription drug tests, such as our Oxycodone Test.  Keep reading to learn more about this dangerous drug, and look forward to a future installment on our Xanax Drug Test.

If you are a parent and suspect drug use in your teenager, you may want to learn more about oxycodone (popularly known by one its commercial names, OxyContin) the drug that is devastating communities across the country with its extremely dangerous and addictive effects on the user.  It might surprise you that this painkiller can be abused in such a way that it affects the body like heroin.  This dangerousness is one of the reasons we sell an OxyContin Test.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) when abused, OxyContin can be ingested, but also smoked, snorted, or injected.  OxyContin is designed to slowly release oxycodone, but when abused in these ways the time-release mechanism is eliminated and the high is powerful and fast.  Instead of feeling its effects over 12 hours you feel it immediately.  Use can be detected as long as two to four days later by an Oxycodone Test.  Withdrawal is extremely painful, as recounted in this NPR report:

But just a week after he started using OxyContin, Ryan realized that if he didn’t get a pill every day or two, he’d start to feel sick. So he kept using it. He says he had no idea how bad he was hooked until the next time he tried to stop.

“It was like somebody was inside of your head with a hammer,” Ryan recalls. “You feel like you’re going to die. Just laying there in the bed, sweat pouring off of you… Then five minutes later, you’re freezing… then you’d be throwing up.”

Prescription drug abuse results in a great number of overdoses, and leads to further drug use – as NPR notes some OxyContin users turn to heroin for the same high.

OxyContin is not a drug to be taken lightly, which is why we offer an OxyContin Test that simultaneously tests for similar and similarly dangerous prescription drugs – it is a Vicodin Test, and a Percocet and Percodan Home Drug Test too.  If you are interested please visit our page for this test for more resources.

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Preparing for a Urine Drug Test

October 12th, 2009   Add Comment

The urine drug test is one of the most commonly used types of drug tests.  Urine drug tests are cheap and extremely accurate – for example, our FDA approved marijuana urine test is 98% accurate.

Another name for urine drug testing is urinalysis.  Urinalysis is the chemical, physical, and microscopic examination of urine, and a common method of diagnosing medical disorders.  While a doctor may examine the physical appearance of a urine sample to determine whether the donor has a urinary tract infection, a home drug test using urine relies upon chemical analysis of urine, a method which is so easy that it can be performed successfully by you in your own home.

Medline Plus, an official government service, provides some tips on collecting urine for a urine drug test.  When performing any of the urine drug tests from Home Health Testing, please be aware that you can collect urine at any time of the day.  Collect the urine in a clean and dry container.

Medline Plus has additional advice on how to collect a urine sample cleanly:

“It is necessary to collect a “clean-catch” (midstream) urine sample. To obtain a clean-catch sample, men or boys should wipe clean the head of the penis with a moist cloth or alcohol square. Women or girls need to wash the area between the lips of the vagina with soapy water and rinse well.

As you start to urinate, allow a small amount to fall into the toilet bowl (this clears the urethra of contaminants). Then, in a clean container, catch about 1 – 2 ounces of urine and remove the container from the urine stream.”

Make sure that you collect enough urine so that the strips of your test card can be immersed to the level of the way lines on the strip. If you follow the instructions that come with the urine drug test, you should have no problem in getting accurate results in the privacy of your own home.

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Saliva Drug Test Information

October 7th, 2009   Add Comment

A saliva drug test is a potent tool that can help you discover whether someone is currently high on drugs, or if not currently high, whether they have used drugs quite recently.  In this way, you can think of it as a disposable breathalyzer for illegal drugs.  Amphetamines, methamphetamines, and cocaine all appear in your saliva 5-10 minutes after use, and it takes 72 hours, 72 hours, and 24 hours respectively for the drugs to disappear from your saliva.  A saliva drug test is the only home drug test that gives you the opportunity to tell whether someone is high.

Saliva drug testing works because there is a high correlation between the amount of a drug in your saliva and the amount of a drug in your blood.  Edward J. Cone, Ph.D., of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has suggested that a saliva drug test could be useful for accident victims, automobile drivers, and those about to engage in risky, safety-sensitive work activities.

The features of a saliva drug test that are pointed out as “pros” by the Office of National Drug Policy in their brochure “What You Need to Know About Student Drug Testing” include:

  • You can obtain the sample under direct observation – it is hard to tamper with it.
  • A saliva drug test is non-invasive
  • It reflects recent drug use

Another perk to mouth fluid testing is that it can measure even smaller amounts of a particular drug in the human body than a urine drug test can.  Whereas a urine test can measure 300 nanograms per mililiter of cocaine in the body, a saliva test can measure the presence of 20 nanograms per mililiter of cocaine in the body.

Home Health Testing’s saliva drug test can help you detect whether someone is currently high on one of 6 drugs:  marijuana, cocaine, opiates (which includes heroin, and morphine), amphetamines (which includes Dexedrine), methamphetamines, and phencyclidine (PCP).  If you want to know whether someone is or recently was under the influence of drugs, this is the test for you.

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HIV Facts

October 1st, 2009   1 Comment

hiv9halfminfactEvery 9 1/2 minutes, someone in the United States is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  A startling fact presented by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  CDC arrived at the 9½ minutes figure by dividing the number of minutes in one year by the 56,300 new HIV infections that were estimated for 2006. This result indicates that, on average, one new HIV infection occurs every 9.34 minutes in a year.

While many people believe the AIDS epidemic is no longer a public health issue in the USA, these facts present that the epidemic is real:

  • In 2006, an estimated 56,300 people became infected with HIV.
  • More than 1 million people in the United States are living with HIV.
  • Of those 1 million people living with HIV, 1 out of 5 do not know they are infected. (People who have HIV but don’t know it can unknowingly pass the virus to their partners.)
  • Despite new therapies, people with HIV still develop AIDS.
  • Over 1 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with AIDS.
  • More than 14,000 people with AIDS still die each year in the United States.

Before we can stop any epidemic, we first have to realize the magnitude of the disease.  Knowing the facts, protecting yourself, talking with partners and loved ones  about HIV/AIDS and getting tested for HIV are the ways to stop the epidemic.

Visit Act Against AIDS and spread the word.

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