Sorry for the long post, but I considered this a public service announcement.
Since moving to
Kissimmee, Florida life has been great, but not without its stress. The weather
is phenomenal. The balmy weather makes it so easy to hop in the car, short
drive, and I am at a Disney par. I love
that!!! I have spent many days just
strolling through the various parks, trying to experience everything. On average at the end of those days I have
walked about four to five miles. My feet
hurt by bedtime LOL.
The stressful part,
however, has been trying to find a job to fund those adventures. With two kids
and a mom depending on me to support them, I was stressed. I did not want to dip too far into my
savings, because that money is for me to buy a home this year hopefully. I managed to stay out of that fund, but my
regular account took a major beating LOL Finally, I got an offer for a job that
I wanted. I was so incredibly relieved.
So, time came for the
dreaded pre-hire paperwork and physical.
Twenty-three pages to fill out.
Some poor tree sacrificed its life so that I could get a parking decal
and benefits. Went in first thing in the morning for the physical, fully expecting
a drug screen. This is almost the norm
for any job nowadays, especially in healthcare. Everything going fine, then she
says I have to do a breathalyzer test!!! Uh oh I had just binged watched White
Collar, and with all the wine drinking they do, I had a glass of wine the night
before LOL ok I know one glass of wine, drank over fourteen hours ago would not
show up, but I still felt my blood pressure go up. Guess what…it was zero LOL. I laughed.
Now time for the urine screen. Only worry there was trying to remember
not to flush.
Then came the results.
The nurse doing the test said “it’s positive for THC” what’s that? THC is the
psychoactive part of marijuana. She was
saying my urine test was positive for drugs!!!
I thought she was joking at first. When I realized she wasn’t, my blood
pressure spiked, my pulse raced, and my mind went into shock. I said run it
again. I have never done drugs in my life. She did, and second one said
positive as well. I was in shock and
near tears at this point. I felt
humiliated, as I protested, saying it was wrong, I was innocent, in my head I
knew she had probably heard all of that before.
I demanded better testing, my integrity was being attacked, and my
career was in jeopardy. She sent the
test results and the urine out to a real lab for further testing. I left barely holding it together, bawling
once I was in car.
All the way home I kept
trying to think of how this had happened. I never have done anything. I am
completely boring. The glass of wine was
my first in over five years. I thought since I sleep with window open, did
somebody outside smoke and I breathed it in while sleeping? Did one of the small
local restaurants I have been to use it in a recipe as a prank? How did it come
up positive??? So, I hit google as soon as I stopped crying.
I had no idea, but it turns out those urine drug
screens they use in emergency rooms and doctor’s offices are notorious for
giving false positives. All because of
simple, everyday items people consume. So,
I thought I would share what they are.
Cold
medicines: a lot of them have pseudoephedrine in them which
will give a false positive for amphetamines.
Tonic
water: also known as
quinine water, can lead to a positive result for opiates.
B2
(riboflavin): since some riboflavin comes from hempseed
oil, it can show traces of THC.
NSAIDs:
these are common, over the counter, pain meds. Examples are Ibuprofen (Motrin),
and naproxen sodium (Aleve). Treating
pain at home can lead to a devastatingly false positive for marijuana, barbiturates,
or benzodiazepines.
Poppy
Seeds: Eat too many
of these and you might test positive for opiates like opium and codeine.
Snack
bars:
Some contain hemp seeds, which again could lead to them saying you are positive
for THC.
It
was the Motrin and Aleve that got me.
All the Disney walking, and sore feet, had me talking some on a daily
basis. I was also taking a multivitamin,
and a multi B vitamin since those are good for stress. Those added up in my system, and were
detected with the test. For three days,
I suffered and fretted, waiting for the results to clear me. When they called me, and said I was cleared I
was so elated and vindicated. I made
sure they knew it was the common, legal medications that had turned against me.
My integrity was once more intact. If
you want the link to the web page that gave me hope for those days here it is.
So
now I can joke about my so-called drug problem.
I joke how it’s been eight days clean and sober with my family. If you must do a urine test in your career,
make sure to tell them all the medications you take, even if they seem
inconsequential to you. They can have a
big impact. I can tell you this though,
no more Aleve or Motrin for me. I am totally Tylenol now. I even went out and
got a bubbling foot bath and Epson salts to help after park days LOL.
