High dose hook affect?!
Hey guys I’m a first time mom pregnant about 8 weeks along 🥹 so naturally I’m anxious everyday and take a urine test everyday to make sure I’m still pregnant 🤣, and yes I’ve had a confirmed sono with a heartbeat and viability 💓. I also work in a clinical lab 🥼 so I naturally (probably unethically) also test my HCG serum levels weekly. Around week 5-6 my levels were 17,000 and my urine tests were DARK, hence why I got an early scan (6weeks 1 day) I thought I was farther along, anyways I was only farther about a couple days (6weeks 6 days) nothing crazy. Well within the past week I noticed my urine tests were getting lighter so of course I was In a panic mode and remembered that in the lab we have a thing called “high dose hook affect” and I thought it could possibly be that as only a couple days ago my HCG levels were at 78,000. I looked it up and yes it is phenomenon with pregnancy! So I did a little experiment I used concentrated urine and diluted urine on the same pregnancy test and YUP! Im pretty sure the diluted line is definitely darker than the concentrated line (pic). I’m pretty sure this is a great example and thought it would be fun to share it definitely eased my worries a whole bunch! Thoughts?? Opinions?? If anyone disagrees as well or thinks I should try something else let me know!! Constructive criticism is welcome as well!
Note*** the line on the left is the control line and the right is the test line (closest to the urine pad)