Has anyone ever had a drug test come back wrong?

[~Lin]

I had my monthly pain appt friday, and at the end of the appt my Dr says my urine screen from the previous month came back strange. I don't think she'd scrolled down to the results on the computer until then, but she tells me it didn't show any morphine metabolites and instead showed oxymorphone which is a metabolite of oxycontin! My first thought was it wasn't my drug test, but she said my dilaudid levels were normal/consistent with my previous drug screens. I know I haven't taken any oxycontin, I know I take my morphine 3 times a day. I take 30mg extended release morphine. The pills always were the same every month (though they changed when just refilled my meds from a tiny deep purple pill to a rather large less dark purple one) I don't really understand how something like this can happen and it scares me. She said since my urine screens are always good and I'm a good patient we would run a new screen, and I gave another urine sample. But this seriously freaks me out. I honestly didn't ever think before that these could come back wrong. Aren't these very highly specific tests with super low margin of error?!? And technically wouldn't this be TWO errors, because first it DIDN'T show my morphine, and second DID show a med I'm not taking! After telling me the information my Dr went "is there anything you need to tell me?" I'm like NO!

I'm about to call the office to find out if they have the results of the new screen back, and if not when. I don't understand how this happened, and its really upset my trust. If something like this could happen once it could happen again. What if it came back wrong a second time?! How do I prove I'm taking my meds and not taking a med I'm not prescribed?! My good friend thinks I'm being paranoid, she said one time a drug test of hers came back with a false pcp! And that it was only the one time and the repeat cleared it up. But I'm really shaken. Last year I had a horrible experience when my Pain Dr just suddenly stopped practicing, followed by places turning me down as a patient saying they werent equipped to handle my case, then the long wait between scheduling the appt and getting in (made longer by what my Dr had done, because they were taking on a lot of his patients) so I had to stretch 2 months of narcotics for 6 months; luckily I got my muscle relaxers from my internist. And I had to wait nearly 6 months to see THAT pain dr before I was his patient, because my pcp first sent me to a injections only clinic and then refused to send me anywhere else while this Dr was moving offices. Its like I've got pain management PTSD now! When the Dr disappeared, there was talk maybe he was prescribing to addicts and something happened so I was afraid if that was true my case was going to be looked down upon purely for having been his patient. Even if I call today and they've already gotten the urine screen back and its completely correct, I want to understand HOW something like this could happen.

[nonoise]

I don't know how your's came out wrong Lin, but I have incorrect K+ labs often and there is a reason it happens. But besides that several years ago I went to the MDA clinic in LA for a complete workup which involved drawing a lot of blood. The reason they wanted so much is that they would send the blood to two different labs and compare results of the same test.

[Buckwild]

Maybe the pharmacy gave you the wrong mess???

[~Lin]

My morphine pill never changed until this month, it was always the same tiny dark burgundy colored pill for the 2 1/2 years I've taken the morphine so I doubt it was a problem from the pharmacy, I also expect if there was that sort of problem I'd have felt different too! The change in my pill just happened when I picked up this months scripts.

The office called me back and left a message saying how it would take a few weeks to get the results back (damnit!) and also mentioned something about them being run twice in case anything is incorrect. So now I'm wondering, was the last result run twice?! Or is it just this time they will run it twice to be absolutely sure its correct? Because if they always run them twice and the last one was run twice and incorrect twice, that REALLY freaks me the fuck out.

[David Berg]

It sounds like they might just be running it twice this time around because there's suspicion about the prior results.

[nonoise]

Tell somebody in your care chain of command about the change of appearance of the pills before the new results come back, I mean like do it now.

[~Lin]

The change in appearance of the pills happened AFTER I gave the new urine sample. Sorry if I wasn't completely clear about all that! I shouldn't have even mentioned it at all, but I wanted to say how my pills had never changed... And ironically I couldn't say that since they DID change just before making the post. But that was when I just refilled my script for this month, so AFTER the incorrect drug screen and AFTER the new urine sample to re-run the screen.

David, that makes sense! I hope thats it.

I'm going to be a nervous wreck until I get the results. Also, I was actually planning on giving my pain Dr a small christmas gift. She's really awesome, she rocks, she's not just the best pain Dr I've ever had but one of the best Dr's I've ever had. We also talk about things outside of treatment, discussing books/documentaries, and horses because I used to be a riding instructor and her son is currently taking lessons. If she wasn't my Dr I think we'd be friends! At my nov appt I was talking to her about how I make my own lip balm and was starting to make soap as well, she was asking questions and really liked the lip balm. Since I made up a bunch of soap, lip balm, hard lotion bars, and whipped body butter as christmas gifts for some people I was going to put together a small one for her too. But now I feel weird with this whole drug screen thing, I wish I had brought it to the Dec appt but everything wasn't ready. I kinda feel like if I bring it to my Jan appt now its going to seem like some sort of bribe.