General questions

What does reactive mean? My result does not say positive

Result came back marked reactive and I have been staring at that word for an hour trying to work out whether it means positive or not.

first_frost 2 months ago

NoteMember experience, not medical advice. Symptoms overlap between infections and only a test can tell them apart.

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slate_roof 2 months ago

The wait for the confirmatory result is horrible and there is no way to make it not be. What helped me was knowing the second test is a different kind of test, not a rerun of the same one, so it genuinely can come back different.

night_bus 2 months ago

Reactive means the screening test picked something up and further testing is needed to say what. It is not the same as a confirmed diagnosis, and it is also not nothing.

For some infections the screening test is deliberately set to be very sensitive, which means it occasionally flags samples that turn out negative on the confirmatory test.

almostfine 2 months ago

Ring them rather than waiting for a letter. Ask what was reactive, what the confirmatory test is, and when it will be back. Having those three facts is much easier to sit with than the single word.

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