Guide to Hair Follicle Drug Tests

Table Of Content

• What to Know About a Hair Follicle Drug Test
• How Does Hair Follicle Drug Testing Work?
• The top 10 reasons companies use us for drug testing
• Do You Use Body Hair or Head Hair for Hair Drug Tests?
• Understanding Case Management Challenges in Healthcare
• Hair Follicle Drug Testing ,
• Prescription oral medications

If two people take the same amount of a drug six months before a test, one person might test positive while the other tests negative. Everything from your diet to your personal hygiene habits will affect how accurate a hair follicle test is and how far back it can go. The amount of drugs you take and how often you take them also affects whether or not a detectable number of metabolites appear in your hair for months to come. As you can see, a lot of different factors go into the detection window for a hair follicle test. Many people think these tests can detect substances up to 12 months in the past, but this is mostly a myth.

What to Know About a Hair Follicle Drug Test

Although hair samples undergo a two-step testing process, they are not 100 percent accurate. Some companies require potential employees to take a drug test as part of their application process, particularly for jobs that carry a high risk of injury. Employers may also carry out random drug testing for current employees, or they may request drug tests following serious accidents or incidents.

How Does Hair Follicle Drug Testing Work?

Although the Schneider trucking company pioneered the use of hair follicle drug testing in the workplace, the test has been increasingly adopted by other companies and industries. Despite the testing evidence, there are many concerns and misconceptions about these important tests that employers must address. While a urine test typically has a detection time frame of 2-5 days, a hair follicle test can detect drug use as far back as 90 days. For this reason, it is considered a more reliable indicator of drug use than urine testing. Hair follicle tests are also more tamper-proof and tend to hold up more often in court.

The top 10 reasons companies use us for drug testing

Hair drug tests can identify drug use up to 90 days prior to the test date. That’s because the chemicals from the drugs that end up in your bloodstream become part of the hair cells as your hair grows. Because of the rate of hair growth, drugs can’t be detected in the hair until five to seven days after use. In the case of a workplace accident, a hair drug test wouldn’t be an appropriate test for detecting recent drug use.

Instead, a sample of strands of hair are cut or shaved and those strands are tested. The hair sample drug test is an ideal procedure both for regular workplace screening and especially for pre-employment screening. When a person ingests a drug, it enters into the bloodstream while the body simultaneously metabolizes the drug, causing those metabolites to circulate through the blood as well.

Understanding Case Management Challenges in Healthcare

Lab tests are routinely performed by doctors to detect changes in your health. However, if both the ELISA and the GC/MS test results are positive, that confirms the presence of specific drugs in the sample. The positive test result is then delivered to the test subject and/or the organization requesting the test confidentially.

Unlike other drug tests, hair follicle drug tests are not recommended for testing occasional use. Instead, hair drug testing can provide a rough timeline of drug use over an extended period. These tests can help detect chronic substance use and help track the duration of drug use, and they can also indicate periods of abstinence.

How Far Does Back Can Schneider’s Hair Follicle Test Detect Drug Use?

We recommend that you watch the technician perform the test and ask them to cut off and discard the length beyond the first 1.5 inches. This request ensures that the 1.5 inches equate to approximately three months of history. Many businesses and federal government agencies prefer hair follicle tests over other tests. Doctors often prescribe oral medications to be used along with topical minoxidil because studies show the combination boosts hair production.

A section of hair, about 200 strands, is sent to a lab for testing. Shedding happens because a new hair pushed out the old one, which stopped growing and became dormant. When a hair is dormant (i.e., not growing), no new drug deposits can get into it.

It will be interesting to see if hair drug testing becomes a reality for the DOT program as early as January of 2017. If a drug test result is positive, a health care provider may ask questions to evaluate the patient for a substance use disorder or addiction. Regardless of whether a patient meets the criteria to be diagnosed with a substance use disorder, treatment is available for drug use and misuse. Follow-up testing after a hair follicle drug test depends on the test results and the purpose of drug testing. If only an initial test was performed, a confirmatory test may be ordered to confirm preliminary results.

After drug use, substances enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body. As hair grows, it absorbs blood carrying these substances, and the drug metabolites become trapped in the structure of the hair strand. Given the average rate of hair growth (about half an inch per month), a 1 ½ inch hair sample can provide a 3-month history of drug use. Hair follicle tests have a detection window extending up to 90 days, a duration considerably longer than most other testing methods. The lengthy detection window of a hair drug test is attributed to the nature of hair growth and how drugs are incorporated into strands of hair.

Some labs will only test head hair so it is important to ask about this if you don’t have at least 1.5 inches of head hair. A 1.5 inch sample of about 200 strands of hair (about the size of a #2 pencil) closest to the scalp will give 100mg of hair, the ideal sample for screening and confirmation. In addition, hair can be collected from several head locations and combined to obtain the required amount of hair. In some cases, the collection of a hair sample will be performed by a trained professional to prevent tampering, contamination, or substitution of the sample.

The judge may also order a nail test for drugs or require hair follicle testing in custody cases. Deep cleaning is crucial in the context of preparing for a hair follicle drug test because superficial cleansing will not remove the metabolites that tests detect. Drug metabolites bind to the keratin structure within the hair cortex, integrating themselves into the hair’s growth history. Detox shampoos must therefore break down these bonds and flush out the metabolites to effectively cleanse the hair.

A variety of treatments have been developed to help regrow hair and thicken existing hair on patients with alopecia, dermatologists say. Their effectiveness largely depends upon what type of alopecia you have and how quickly you start treatment. Hair loss, or alopecia, affects more than 80 percent of men and 50 percent of women, and the risk increases with age. I asked for a supervisor to talk to you about your test counselor Ray, This man is a keeper!

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A hair drug test detects a pattern of repeated drug use over the last 90 days. Because hair growth rates vary from person to person, this test can’t accurately determine when in the 90 days drugs were used. A negative result can be determined within 24 hours of hair removal. A hair strand drug test screens for illicit drug use and the misuse of prescription medication. Though commonly called a “hair follicle test,” this drug test only tests clipped strands of hair, not the follicle located under the scalp.

Our extensive network offers your employees convenient access to a Labcorp collection site. Drug testing is becoming an increasingly important component of safety, security and operations across many industries. For professional and commercial transport, it’s an especially crucial component, as both the safety of passengers and/or cargo are now also a part of the equation. Drug use for drivers, pilots and other vehicle operators can have tremendously negative effects on the road, the rail, or even in the air. In workplaces, drug use doesn’t just affect the individual user, it has a domino effect on work and the co-workers in the environment, affecting relationships and efficiency. The new 17-panel hair drug test is the most comprehensive drug test panel available in the United State.