Not too accurate, sorry. The tubes usually used for the ‘spinning’ are only capable of holding around 30-40cc (iirc - it is not much), about same size as the larger-sized tubes used in blood-draws (give or take a tad). Typically, the tube is filled 1/2 - 3/4 full with exact amount not critical at all (ime), spun a few minutes (~5 minutes works fine usually). Then the tube is poured out and the tiny bit remaining that would have the ‘solids’ is placed upon a slide (usually with a ‘dropper thingy’, forget actual name, gives ability to easily use just a drop of the supernatant) and viewed/eval’d for contents such as bacteria, blood or epi cells, etc. Essentially, its better to have too much than not enough, but a few ‘spoonfuls’ is usually enough to get usable results from all but the most anal of Lab Techs.
The dipstick shows blood or components also, fwiw. The pad on stick changes from yellow to shades of green (from ‘trace’ to 3+ or similar ratings). Some physicians do not want a micro done if the stick shows ‘normal’ while some want every test ever devised performed, it seems :rolleyes:
It’s not a question of “anal” lab techs - we need a minimum volume for a microscopic exam because if we’re saying we see 10-20 red cells per microscopic field, it means something very different if we started with 10mL or 2mL. We put a “low volume” comment on our results if we had less than 6mL to work with.
The urine is transferred to a tube soon after you pee in the cup. It holds 10mL, and we like it to be full in case we need to do extra tests in it.
Long story short, pee 10mL for us and we’ll be very happy. We’ll work with less but your results may not be accurate.
It’s been a few years since I had to collect 24 hours’ worth of urine, but IIRC, they gave me a translucent plastic jug, somewhat similarly to a gallon milk jug, which had warnings on it and said something like “Biological Material-Do Not Consume”. I helpfully pointed this out to my husband, who ASSURED me that he’d do his best not to consume it. He doesn’t really care for beer or apple juice anyway.
I’ve always been given that cup, or something so similar as to make no difference, to put my single sample urine specimens in.
This is exactly what I’ve used every time I’ve gone to the doctor, and it’s what your average American means when they say “cup” (when referring to the pee kind, obviously).
So no, they don’t just hand you a mug and expect you to pee in it.
Bolding mine. IANALT (Lab Tech), but aren’t you SUPPOSED to catch mid-stream so that any bacteria hanging out around the outside end of your urethra are flushed out before you catch your sample? Cite
The ‘anal’ comment is about a very small % of Techs I have experienced that threw anything less than than their concept of ‘perfect’ into the trash (literally), or ‘contract labs’ that reject stuff that is not exactly as they insist, but within reasonable limits. Not the usual routine, by any means, and certainly not a blanket statement By far, most of us Techs can/will work around less than perfect samples. Comment fields are very, very familiar to me, but some Techs had no idea what to do with 'em.
This has little to do with the OP but I’ll post it anyway.
My dad told a story about the doctors office. He heard the nurse yell “Oh no!” then the doctor came in laughing.
The nurse had set a cup on the sink in the bathroom and instructed a five year old boy to pee into it. He gave it a good try!
So they told me as well - pee a bit first, then fill the cup, then finish in the toilet.
I generally handle it the way I handled the semen sample I had to provide after my vasectomy - hand it over with a wink and say, “Plenty more where that came from!”
Any time I’ve had to provide a semen sample (my wife and I have gone through several rounds of IUI), the handoff has been like a super secret drop in a spy movie. After I have the sample in the cup, I open a little metal door in the wall to a small alcove. After I close the door, a little light goes on in the next room to alert the technician that the sperm is in the safe and then they open the alcove from a door on their side. Meanwhile I have been provided with directions to exit the doctor’s office from the back hallway, so as not to be seen leaving by the staff or the patients in the waiting room. It’s very cloak-and-dagger.
We usually need only 10-20 cc, or enough to dip a dipstick. If your doc needed more, they would tell you how much.
A 24 hour urine collection starts with the time you empty your bladder (say, 3 pm). Now you begin the collection. Then you collect all urine for the next 24 hours and empty your bladder for the final collection at the same time as when you started (3 pm the following day).
No need to waste a relatively expensive sterile cup when you are just doing and in-office dipstick. For example, pregnant women get checked for protein, glucose and ketones on every visit. The nurse or tech can dipstick that while the woman waits to be seen by the Doc. This test does not need to go to the lab for processing and they aren’t checking for bacteria, so a sterile sample is not needed.
The first ever I had to provided a urine sample was late '70s. I was given not a cup, but a bottle. I recall it being somewhat smaller than a 1L milk bottle - but of course my memory now of the bottle in my young hands is certainly not trustworthy.
Being young an naive I thought volume was important to the doctor, so I let’er rip, overflowed, and embarassedly dealt with the mess. I returned the bottle to the nurse. Later, on my way out the door, I saw a 6 or 7 of these bottles lined up in front of a lab tech. It was easy to spot mine - the only one filled to the top while the others had 1" or so.
Okay, so when you say “cup,” you mean “proper urine specimen container.” Got it.
ETA: I didn’t think US Americans were peeing in mugs (but I do appreciate the visual) - I thought maybe it was like the little plastic cups that they give you a pill in.
Of course, now I’m going to be visualizing nurses handing me mugs whenever I have to give urine samples (currently, quite frequently since I’m 7 months pregnant), and giggling.
The boyfriend was once asked to provide a stool sample the day our fridge died. He put it in my wine fridge. I told him that for some reason his poop among my food was gross but deal-with-able, but his poop with my wine was just too gross to contemplate.
The tubes usually used for the ‘spinning’ are only capable of holding around 30-40cc (iirc - it is not much), about same size as the larger-sized tubes used in blood-draws (give or take a tad). Typically, the tube is filled 1/2 - 3/4 full with exact amount not critical at all (ime), spun a few minutes (~5 minutes works fine usually). Then the tube is poured out and the tiny bit remaining that would have the ‘solids’ is placed upon a slide (usually with a ‘dropper thingy’, forget actual name, gives ability to easily use just a drop of the supernatant) and viewed/eval’d for contents such as bacteria, blood or epi cells, etc. Essentially, its better to have too much than not enough, but a few ‘spoonfuls’ is usually enough to get usable results from all but the most anal of Lab Techs.