Lifestyle

The $5 Covid-19 Test in 15 Minutes

September 18, 2020

Unlike a test using a test tube in a lab, the BinaxNow test is a credit-card-sized test easy to use outside a lab.

The $5 Covid-19 Test in 15 Minutes

How can you safely attend the family reunion or your best friend’s wedding during the Coronavirus Era? So many variables to consider. Is it outdoors? How big will the crowd be? The $5 Covid-19 Test just may be of interest to you.

The war on Covid-19 is being fought on many fronts. From early diagnostics to innovative treatments to a vaccine. There is a lot in the works. One product that grabs my attention is a practical diagnostic test that has just been given FDA Emergency Use Authorization. Let’s take a look at it.

What is the big deal?

The $5 Covid-19 Test in 15 minutes is called BinaxNow. It is fast and easy-to-use. This test can help prevent spread of the virus by alerting you of positive results fast. Then, if you get a positive result, you can quarantine yourself to avoid further exposures. It also allows you to trace your contacts to give them a heads up to go for a test.

By knowing of an infection as early as possible, you can not only quarantine to help avoid spreading the virus, but you can then contact your healthcare provider for instructions how to care for yourself. This is a time when being proactive is so much better than being reactive. Early treatment of infections usually net the best results.

So, What Is BinaxNow:

It is inexpensive. $5 Covid-19 Test.

BinaxNow is not a test in a test tube. It is actually a card, which makes it portable or easy to move around. It does not require a laboratory to process. Therefore, it can be given in a healthcare providers office or even a pharmacy. It is about the size of a credit card.

A medical professional must administer it.

BinaxNow detects antigens, which are proteins found on the Covid-19 virus.

Abbots clinical study ( with several leading U.S. research Universities) shows BinaxNow to have 97.1% sensitivity and 98.5% specificity. So, BinaxNow can produce 2.9% false negatives and 1.5% false positives. It is not infallible. Approximately 3 out of 100 tests can produce a false negative meaning you have Covid-19 even though the test said you didn’t. You could unknowingly spread the virus.

According to the Mayo Clinic, this is a risk with this type of test.

Here is How The $5 Covid-19 Test Goes:

Abbott.com explains it best.

The healthcare worker opens the card and lays it flat on a countertop.
Extraction reagent is added to the test card, which is about the size of a credit card.
A nasal swab is taken from the patient.
A technician inserts the swab into the test card, folds over the cover and in 15 minutes, reads the result.
People who use the app and receive a negative test result will get a temporary encrypted digital health pass via a QR code (similar to an airline boarding pass) sent to the NAVICA app. The digital pass is renewed each time a person receives a negative test result and includes the date of the latest test result submission. Organizations will be able to view and verify the information on a mobile device to help make entry into these places easier, along with hand-washing, social distancing, enhanced cleaning and mask-wearing.
Those who test positive will receive a message through the app telling them to quarantine and talk to their doctor.

The Navica app.

The Navica mobile app will be available for both Android and Apple mobile phones at no charge to you. The app will enable you to display the results of the BinaxNow Covid-19 test in situations that require proof of a negative test. Like at the airport before boarding a flight.

The first-of-its-kind app will provide those with a negative test a QR code that serves as a temporary digital health pass. This pass will expire after a interim determined by the organization that accepts it.

Pretty nifty, huh?!

Why I Think The $5 Covid-19 Test Matters.

For public health and wellbeing reasons, the goal is to stop the virus and it’s spread. But, for a person with a weak immune system, such as someone with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), it is even more critical.

First of all, if you know you have Covid-19, you can quarantine yourself and contact your doctor for care instructions. It is better to manage a Cover-19 infection in the early stages for the best outcomes.

Conversely, others can quarantine and prevent exposing you to the virus if they know they have it.

And the fact that it is inexpensive, portable, and fast makes it user-friendly.

According to a CNN report, the U.S. Government has purchased 150 million BinaxNow Covid-19 tests.

Because of this development, testing will be faster, easier, and affordable. This will help you to return to a more “normal” life, whatever that is! Just one more way to care for yourself in the Coronavirus Era.

Another benefit is to lower anxiety levels, which is a good thing. Especially for those of us with autoimmune conditions, because stress and anxiety can trigger flares.

So, when this test hits the market, you can be more confident considering the family gathering or wedding. Go get tested! And suggest to your friends and relatives to do the same!

Don’t forget social distancing and your mask when appropriate!

XXOO

Cathy from Arthritis Wisdom

RA Best Practices

June 10, 2020

The conference room where a company’s Best Practices are determined. Of course, I am the manager of my RA, so my RA Best Practices are determined most often in my easy chair or even driving in my car!

RA Best Practices

As you know I am a pharmacist. I work in a psychiatric specialty pharmacy and my primary job is to check bubble packs, prescriptions and bulk medications filled by our technicians. We have a bar code system that helps insure accuracy, which is of utmost importance. I provide the last check before the item is dispensed and I am all about Best Practices.

What is Best Practices you may ask. A great question. Best practices are simply the best process to do things. They have been worked out through trial and error, and are found to be the most accurate and efficient way to proceed to deliver a pharmaceutically elegant product and/or service.

So I was having a friendly chit-chat the other day with someone from my Pilates class. We were comparing how our bodies were feeling after the suspension of our class for many weeks. She seemed to be doing whole lot better than I was.

Well, I then shared how I’ve been doing a lot of weeding in my garden and confessed I wasn’t using RA Best Practices. I was doing way to much bending over and not enough sitting on my padded gardening mat.

Yes! That is the exact terminology I used to describe my method of gardening. RA Best Practices.

So what specifically is an RA Best Practice?

It is, of course, the best process to do things since my rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis. The process has been worked out through trial and error to be the most accurate and efficient way to prevent further stress and irritation on my joints.

Just to let you know the process may or may not be the most efficient way of doing something literally, but in the end it is most efficient to preserve my joints.

Let me explain. When doing a task going up and down stairs, I will be sure to do so by consolidating all I need to do upstairs before going downstairs to limit having to use the steps more often. Using the stairs too much tends to stress my joints.

But, as I do tasks on one floor I am not at all efficient with my tasks, intentionally. I want to stretch and move around and that helps me to do so.

Yes, it seems a bit strange, but it makes sense to me and my body feels and moves so much better when I stretch it and keep on moving.

My family has learned not even to ask what I’m up to because of my unique and nonconventional approach to living! It is my RA Best Practices!

That is what I am sharing with you on this blog. The things I have learned and discovered to help manage my RA. And also to preserve what is functioning and working well!

And that is using Arthritis Wisdom!

XXOO Cathy

photo credit: Benjamin Childs from Unsplash

From Space Discovery to Immune System Discovery

May 30, 2020

Space discovery is fascinating like immune system discovery

Space discovery and exploration is fascinating just as immune system discovery is.

From Space Discovery to Immune System Discovery

We are anxiously awaiting another manned space launch scheduled today from Kennedy Space Center. There is nothing like a launch to get my imagination revved up.

Because of this anticipation, I’m thinking about a recent phone conversation with our son. He is an aerospace engineer researching rocket propellants. He does advanced imaging of propellants for his thesis. I guess you could call him a radiologist for rocket fuel.

The topic of this chat was all about the challenges to safely make a trip to Mars. Fascinating.

After hanging up from the conversation I was struck by his passion for exploring the unknown. The desire to solve problems. Go where no one knows what is there.

But because of MY passion my thought process shifted to the discovery of the immune system. From the vastness of outer space to the intricacy of the microscopic immune system. Fascinating.

Because of my rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis, I spend a lot of time reading about the immune system. It is personal and I desire to get this problem solved. Knowing the power of our mind, my initial thought was to visualize my body fighting this disease successfully. My rheumatologist, a leading researcher at the time, responded to the idea with, “Where do you start? It is so complex.”

Why this matters:

Because the cause of RA is the immune system gone awry and attacking your own body tissues, it makes sense to understand the workings of the system. That is a tall order.

The book titled An Elegant Defense by Matt Richter, a New York Times bestselling author, describes the immune system in a wondrous way by using the medical situation of four individuals to explain it. Although something is amiss with my immune system, I want to support all that is going right with it. That is where my *FRESH*™ strategy comes in! Helping my biologic manage the disease.

How this applies to RA treatment:

The drugs used to treat RA that actually modify the disease course are called DMARDs (disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs).

An article authored by Onecia Benjamin; Pankaj Bansal; Amandeep Goyal; Sarah L. Lappin titled “Disease Modifying Anti-rheumatic Drugs (DMARD)” best describes the mechanism of action of DMARDs as follows:

“Each DMARD has a unique mechanism of action ultimately interfering with critical pathways in the inflammatory cascade. Methotrexate, for example, stimulates adenosine release from fibroblasts, reduces neutrophil adhesion, inhibits leukotriene B4 synthesis by neutrophils, inhibits local IL-1 production, reduces levels of IL-6 and IL-8, suppresses cell-mediated immunity, and inhibits synovial collagenase gene expression. Other medications in this class serve to inhibit proliferation or cause dysfunction of lymphocytes. Leflunomide inhibits dihydroorotate dehydrogenase resulting in inhibition of pyrimidine synthesis hence blocking lymphocyte proliferation. Sulfasalazine mediates its anti-inflammatory effects by preventing oxidative, nitrative and nitrosative damage. Hydroxychloroquine, on the other hand, is a very mild immunomodulatory agent that inhibits intracellular toll-like receptor TLR9.

Biologics, on the other hand, are very selective in their mechanism of action. The overarching functions of biologics include (1) interfering with cytokine function or production, (2) inhibiting the “second signal” required for T-cell activation, or (3) depleting B-cells or inhibiting factors that active B-cells. Tofacitinib is a small molecule inhibitor of JAK, a protein tyrosine kinase involved in mediating cytokine signaling.”

All these pathways are in some way a part of the immune system.

So, as I await the launch of the Spacex rocket to explore outer space, I am thinking about all the brilliant researchers exploring our microscopic immune system to advance RA management. Both fascinating!

XXOO Cathy of Arthritis Wisdom

photo credit: Spacex