Helping your patients become familiar with and prepared for specimen collection will not only reduce their stress, it will help make the whole process easier. Here you will find helpful patient instructions for a number of specimen collections with special requirements. You can either print them and share them with your patients or encourage your patients to access them through the Patients area of this Web site.

Tests Requiring an Appointment
Tests Requiring Fasting
Urine Collection
Stool Collection
Other Collections

Tests Requiring an Appointment

Most visits to our Patient Services Centres do not require appointments. Tests that do require you to make an appointment include:

• Oral Glucose Tolerance Tests (GTTs)
  
• Lactose and Xylose Tolerance Tests
  
• Holter Monitoring
  
• Urea Breath Tests for Helicobacter Pylori
  
• Breath Alcohol Testing
  
• US Department of Transportation (DOT) urine procedures.

• Cholesterol
  
• Glucose
  
• HDL Cholesterol
  
• Homocysteine
  
• Lactose Tolerance
  
• LDL Cholesterol
  
• Lipoprotein Phenotyping
  
• Oral Glucose Tolerance (GTT)
  
• Triglycerides
  
• Xylose Tolerance

1. Clearly label container with your full name.
   
   
2. In the morning, completely empty the bladder into the toilet as usual. This specimen is NOT collected for testing. Print “collection started” and time and date in appropriate space on container label.
   
   
3. Add all urine passed over the next 24 hours to container. Always place urine into container immediately.
   
   
4. Prior to any bowel movement, completely empty bladder and add urine to container to prevent any loss.
   
   
5. The following morning, exactly 24 hours later (to the hour) empty bladder completely and ADD final specimen to container. Print “collection completed” and time and date in appropriate space on the container label. This final addition completes the 24-hour collection period started the day before. If a second specimen is required, collection can begin from this time and continue over the next 24-hour period.
   
   
6. Keep collection bottle in cool place or refrigerate.

1. Clearly label container with your full name.
   
   
2. Wash and dry hands thoroughly.
   
   
3. WASH: It is necessary to wash only the area from which you pass urine. Soak sponge or washcloth with soap. Using one sponge or washcloth at a time, wipe only from the front to the back between the folds of your skin.
   
   RINSE: After washing with soap, rinse with warm water using a clean sponge or washcloth.
   
   
4. Remove lid from container and set lid upside down. DO NOT TOUCH INNER SURFACE.
   
   
5. Squat over toilet, separating skin of the vulva. Continue to hold skin apart and pass a small amount of urine into the toilet, then collect in container.
   
   
6. Secure lid tightly.
   
   
7. Return container to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or to your clinician’s office, along with the requisition.
   
   
8. Refrigerate sample if not returned to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or to your clinician’s office immediately.

1. Clearly label container with your full name.
   
   
2. Wash and dry hands thoroughly.
   
   
3. WASH: Expose penis, retract foreskin (if not circumcised) and, if necessary, wash with sponge or washcloth soaked with soap.
   
   RINSE: Rinse with a clean sponge or washcloth soaked with warm water.
   
   
4. Remove lid from container and set lid upside down. DO NOT TOUCH INNER SURFACE.
   
   
5. Pass a small amount of urine into the toilet, then collect into container. DO NOT TOUCH CONTAINER OPENING.
   
   
6. Secure lid tightly.
   
   
7. Return container to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or to your clinician’s office, along with the requisition.
   
   
8. Refrigerate sample if not returned to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or to your clinician’s office immediately.

1. Discard your first morning urine. This specimen is NOT suitable for testing.
   
   
2. Drink five to six eight-ounce glasses of water over a period of three hours. Urinate and discard.
   
   
3. When the urge to urinate arises again, urinate into an empty sterile specimen container and then carefully pour an amount of urine into the container equal to the volume of the preservative. PROMPT FIXATION IS IMPORTANT.
   
   
4. Make sure the lid is tightly secured and mix by tipping container upside down.
   
   
5. Clearly label the container with your full name. Return the specimen to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or to your clinician’s office within a few hours, along with the completed cytology requisition. The specimen should be refrigerated if it is not delivered soon after collection.

1. Clearly label containers with your full name and date of collection.
   
   
2. Collect feces in a dry, clean container such as a chamber pot, plastic bag, plastic jar, wide-mouth jar, or on waxed paper. Avoid stool contact with urine or toilet water.
   
   
3. Add a teaspoonful of feces to transport container immediately after bowel movement. Select bloody or mucous-covered areas if seen.
   
   
4. Screw cap tightly onto container.
   
   
5. Mix feces with transport medium in container.
   
   
6. Return container to Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or your clinician’s office as soon as possible, along with the requisition.

1. Do not take any laxatives, enemas or antibiotics for one week before stool collection unless otherwise directed by your clinician.
   
   
2. Pass stool onto clean, dry surface, such as a chamber pot, plastic bag, plastic wrap or waxed paper. Avoid stool contact with urine or toilet water.
   
   
3. Use scoop attached to container lid or use sticks provided. Add about one teaspoonful of fresh stool to transport fluid immediately after bowel movement. Be sure to take small samples from all parts of stool (e.g., hard and soft areas), and especially from any parts with blood or mucous.
   
   
4. Break up stool pieces in the transport fluid as much as possible.
   
   
5. Screw lid on tightly and shake container to emulsify stool.
   
   
6. Return bottle to plastic bag and reseal.
   
   
7. Wash hands immediately.
   
   
8. Return container to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or your clinician’s office, along with the requisition.

• During or until three days after menstrual period,
  
• While you have blood in your urine,
  
• If you have bleeding haemorrhoids,
  
• If dental work has taken place within three days.

• Generous portions of cooked and raw vegetables, especially lettuce, corn and spinach,
  
• Plenty of fruits such as prunes, plums, grapes and apples,
  
• Moderate portions of high-fibre foods such as bran cereal, popcorn, whole-wheat bread and peanuts,
  
• Tuna fish, well-cooked poultry or pork.

• Red or lightly cooked meats (e.g., beef or lamb),
  
• Turnips, broccoli, horseradish, cantaloupes, parsnips and radishes,
  
• Vitamin C in excess of 250 mg per day,
  
• Iron supplements,
  
• Aspirin and medications that can cause gastrointestinal irritation.

1. Clearly print your full name on each card with a ballpoint pen.
   
   
2. Before a bowel movement, flush toilet to clear water (DO NOT use bowl with automatic cleansers or bluing agents). Place plastic wrap or several layers of toilet paper over rim of bowl to ease collecting stools.
   
   
3. Lift front flap of test pack from one test slide. Defecate and use applicator stick to apply very thin smear of stool to “Oval I.” Use same stick to apply a thin smear from a different area of feces to “Oval II.” Discard stick in trash. DO NOT flush down toilet.
   
   
4. Close flap by sliding tab into crescent-slit. Enter date on front of slide. Place completed test slide into specially provided envelope.
   
   
5. Repeat procedure for three consecutive bowel movements.
   
   
6. Seal envelope by removing tape strip and folding as shown. Return to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre, or to your clinician’s office, along with the requisition.

1. Collect specimen upon waking, before using the toilet or bathing.
   
   
2. DO NOT wipe or wash area before sampling.
   
   
3. Remove container cap and select “sticky” side of paddle. DO NOT TOUCH STICKY SURFACE WITH FINGERS. Hold paddle by rounded end and press sticky surface of square end firmly against skin around and across anal opening. DO NOT insert paddle into rectum. DO NOT contaminate paddle with stool.
   
   
4. Place paddle into tube, inserting square end to bottom of the tube.
   
   
5. Place container in plastic bag and reseal.
   
   
6. Thoroughly wash and dry hands immediately. Pinworm eggs are easily transferred by contaminated hands during collection and can infect others.

1. Before breakfast, cough deeply to loosen thick sputum.
   
   
2. Release sputum specimen with no saliva directly into sterile collection container provided.
   
   
3. Refrigerate specimen immediately. Deliver specimen within 24 hours of collection to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or your clinician’s office, along with the requisition.

1. Before eating breakfast or brushing teeth, assume an elbow-knee position on the bed for five minutes so lungs are higher than windpipe.
   
   
2. Inhale and exhale several times. Cough deeply from the chest/diaphragm to obtain secretions from bronchial tree.
   
   
3. Collect specimen directly into a Gamma-Dynacare sterile container.
   
   
4. Deliver sputum sample to a Gamma-Dynacare Patient Services Centre or to your clinician’s office immediately, along with the requisition. If there is a delay, keep the specimen refrigerated or fix in 50% alcohol. Fresh specimens are preferred.

1. Refrain from sexual activity resulting in ejaculation for three days but not longer than five days before collecting specimen.
   
   
2. Ejaculate specimen by means of self-stimulation. DO NOT use condom.
   
   
3. Collect ALL seminal fluid into sterile container provided, as greatest concentration of sperm is found in first portion of ejaculate.
   
   
4. Clearly label the container with your full name, date and time of collection.