Cipher
Administrator
- Messages
- 1,233
I’ve done some testing and it seems like submersing the dip-slide in a urine sample for 20 seconds while continuously moving it around is much more sensitive than placing the dip-slide in the urine stream for a second or two. I also compared mid-day urine to morning urine.
The submersion time of 20 seconds is pretty arbitrary, most dip-slide instructions says 10 seconds, so I just went with something a bit higher. I’ve gotten one positive culture using the stream-method a while back, but that seems to be pretty rare for me.
I think most bacteria have the ability to adhere to surfaces, and I would guess this is why the submersion-method is more sensitive because it gives the bacteria more chances to grab a hold of the agar surface.
I applied chlorhexidine to the urethral opening to reduce the risk of contamination, and used the mid-stream portion of the urine.
For this test I collected my urine in a drinking glass with a silicone lid that I heat-sterilized in the oven (1h @ 170C). In retrospect it would’ve been easier to just collect the urine in the sterile container that the dip-slide comes with.
I’ll try to identify the bacteria using the Brilliance UTI agar among others.
The submersion time of 20 seconds is pretty arbitrary, most dip-slide instructions says 10 seconds, so I just went with something a bit higher. I’ve gotten one positive culture using the stream-method a while back, but that seems to be pretty rare for me.
I think most bacteria have the ability to adhere to surfaces, and I would guess this is why the submersion-method is more sensitive because it gives the bacteria more chances to grab a hold of the agar surface.
I applied chlorhexidine to the urethral opening to reduce the risk of contamination, and used the mid-stream portion of the urine.
For this test I collected my urine in a drinking glass with a silicone lid that I heat-sterilized in the oven (1h @ 170C). In retrospect it would’ve been easier to just collect the urine in the sterile container that the dip-slide comes with.
I’ll try to identify the bacteria using the Brilliance UTI agar among others.