Hair Follicle Testing in Monitoring Programs

[Sick of nursing 101]

I'm being considered for a monitoring program. Will a hair follicle test (what panel) be done at the very beginning? I just don't know if I want to even do nursing anymore.

I have taken an opioid recently d/t sever fibromyalgia pain, but the prescription I have is out of date.

I'm in TN

[NurseJackie69]

HospiceRN2024 said:

Do they do a hair test for alcohol? That's what I'm worried about. Please respond.....  Thanks you fellow nurses... 

Yes. Alcohol has a low sensitivity and specificity when done in a hair test, but the reason it matters is because when alcohol is detected in the hair, you are positive for sure and there's little to argue because alcohol requires fairly regular drinking yo show up. It doesn't require a massive amount of drinking, but requires drinking more than 2 or 3 times in a 90 day period. It's closer to 15 times

[dancinginthedark]

HospiceRN2024 said:

Do they do a hair test for alcohol? That's what I'm worried about. Please respond.....  Thanks you fellow nurses... 

No, they don't check for alcohol. It's not reliable test for that. Just fyi, if you're a heavy drinker, the peth test can show up positive after a month. I went through binge drinking episode and took peth 30 days later, and it was positive