How to Correctly Pass Medical Tests

Any person has to pass different medical tests from time to time, and there are a great many reasons. At the same time, unfortunately, not everyone knows the basic rules of preparation for the study, not to mention about the procedure for the collection of samples for analysis.

Blood Test

A blood test is taken:

• from a finger – for the general blood test;
• from a vein – for most of others tests.

The blood can be taken:

• strictly fasting – for biochemical, serological or hormonal blood tests;
• without keeping a strict timed diet – for general study.

Before testing it is necessary to observe the following recommendations:

• if the common blood test is scheduled, you cannot eat anything within an hour before;
• if it is necessary the fasting blood test, the last meal should be for 8-12 hours before the procedure;
• a couple of days before testing, it is recommended to stop eating fatty and fried foods, alcoholic beverages;
• smoking is also excluded, but only to the nearest hour before giving blood;
• if the goal is to determine the levels of certain hormones or iron in the blood, it will be an informative test, taken not later than 10 am.

There are factors that can distort the real indicators of blood, resulting in the test being interpreted incorrectly. These include:

1. Physical activity and emotional distress immediately before test.
2. A sauna or a hot bath on the eve of the test.
3. Taking certain types of medication.
4. Starving or protein diet.
5. Passage of X-rays and other diagnostic and physical therapy before blood test.

In such cases, it is recommended to retake the test by excluding these factors, in order to avoid improper and unjustified treatment.

Urine Test

To collect the urine sample, you will need a clean, dry container, in a role which can act sterilized glass jar of baby food or special container, bought in a pharmacy. The capacity of not less than 2 liters will be required to collect daily urine.

Rules of collecting urine for a general test:

1. For the test, the concentrated first morning urine is needed.
2. Before you collect urine, you must thoroughly wash the genital organs in order that the microorganisms and epithelium should not get mixed with the urine in a container.
3. you need to collect midstream urine. This means that the container can be placed in the urine stream for about the middle of urination or a little earlier, not allowing ingress into the container first and last streams. The recommended amount of urine to collect about is 100 ml, but less than 50.
4. The collected urine should be delivered to the laboratory with in the next hour.

Rules urine collection for biochemical analysis:

1. Having missed the first morning urine, but all others, including the following morning, should be collected in the same type of container. It is necessary to take into account the fact that the collection should be ended no later than 7 am to have time to deliver the analysis to the laboratory.
2. The capacity with the collected urine, during the whole period of the collection, requires cold storage.
3. During the day, you should consume usual volumes of fluid.
4. After finishing the collection, it is necessary to mix and measure the whole daily volume of urine and record this number on a separate piece of paper and add your weight.
5. All of 1.5-2 liters of urine collected during the day are not needed in the laboratory. It is required to pour off just 50-100 ml of urine into a separate sterile container and take to the laboratory by applying the above-mentioned paper.

It is not recommended:

• to pass urine during menstruation, because menstrual discharge, which greatly affect the results, can get into the container for collection;
• the day before the urine collection to eat foods that can stain it, taking diuretic medications and drink alcohol.

Stool Test

The general order of the collection:

1. Prepare a sterile container.
2. Then pre-empty the bladder, so that stool does not get mixed with urine.
3. Defecation should be done in disinfected pan or vessel.
4. Required quantity of feces (usually about 10 ml or 2-3 teaspoons) is placed in a container, tightly cover and transported to the laboratory together with the direction.

The basic requirements in the analysis on a dysbacteriosis are as follows:

• collection of feces is necessary to make before you start taking medicinal preparations;
• you can only give a fresh feces on the study, collected no later than three hours before the test;
• it must strictly comply with the conditions of sterility.

If you have been appointed coprogram feces a few days before the analysis it is recommended to abandon high-fat and fried foods, and give preference to dairy products, cereals and vegetable dishes, eggs, fruit.

Feces, for research on helminth eggs, are allowed to collect on the eve of the evening before delivery to the laboratory, but until this moment the sample must be stored in the refrigerator.

It is impossible to take stool obtained through laxatives or after enemas, as it ruins all kinds of tests. Stool is not suitable for analysis collected two days after an X-ray examination. In addition, a week before the delivery of the analysis you need to stop taking medicinal preparations that can affect all the digestive processes (laxatives, enzymes, vitamins).

Semen Analysis

In order to ensure semen analysis is performed more reliably, it is necessary to observe the following rules for 4-5 days before the delivery of the analysis:

• complete sexual abstinence;
• refusal of alcohol, various medications and hot bath or a steam room.

Sperm can be collected in a laboratory glass in a clinical laboratory or at home. The semen collected no later than one hour prior to the study is suitable for test. The use of condoms is unacceptable because the sperm parameters may significantly worsen. Summary of problems with the fertilizing capacity shall be made on the basis of not less than three spermogram conducted at regular intervals.