Until this weekend, I had only personally administered two brands of COVID-19 home tests on myself or my children. All of my earlier home testing experience was with:

• Abbott Labs BinaxNOW antigen tests -and-
• Cue Health molecular tests

I wrote a detailed review of the Cue Health product a few months ago for those who can afford a more accurate, but much more expensive home test.

Both the Abbott and Cue coronavirus tests were easy† for me to use, had straightforward directions, and required only moderate hand strength and dexterity. I highly recommend either of these brands to those with less-than-average manual abilities.

I say this as a person living with a diagnosis of mild, seronegative rheumatoid arthritis whose small joints do not always cooperate with my intent. Those with profound disabilities may require assistance for even these tests, and near-normal eyesight is necessary for every COVID-19 test I’ve tried.

That said, if you can still brush your own teeth effectively, you can probably manage either Abbott or Cue home COVID-19 tests.

In our busy household of five, we keep all of our coronavirus test kits on a dedicated table at the side of the living room, stacked up in order of expiration date.

Having flown cross country in March to visit my father, I consumed several tests in quick succession upon my return, and we quickly worked through our locally purchased Abbott test kits to the more recent Roche branded ones we received free from the United States government.

Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order 2 sets of 4 free at-⁠home tests. Click here to order yours if you haven’t already.

We test my younger child—the one who attends high school in person—every weekend before he goes downstairs to visit his paternal grandfather. Дедушка lives downstairs in our home, but he has his own dedicated space, kitchen, and a separate entrance. Still, age and health status leaves Deda especially vulnerable to a severe case of COVID-19.

We feel grateful to have the means to protect him from an infection we might unwittingly visit upon him by going about our own public lives.

On Saturday, we used one Roche COVID-19 At-Home test kit from a box of four. Fortunately, it was conducted by my hale and hearty teen, administering his own test. I did not anticipate how difficult this test would have been for me, had I been taking one myself, and I was happy to be merely an observer and reader of directions.

Steps five and six of the Roche process would have stymied me, but my healthy child had no real issue with them or with the test in general. There’s a lot of firm pinching involved in those steps, which would be beyond my arthritic fingers.

Our older home educated teen took a test later the same day, and I asked if he wouldn’t mind trying the fourth brand in our personal arsenal: the ACON Labs FlowFlex test even though this meant using test out of expiry order.

I was curious if it would present similar issues. It did.

FlowFlex was the brand sent out by our health insurance via its preferred mail order pharmacy, Express-Scripts.

We are entitled to eight “free” i.e., included with our employer-provided health insurance COVID-19 tests every month for each covered member of our plan. I ordered those for the two household members going to work/school as soon as the benefit was published on the website, and they were delivered about four weeks later. In the meantime, I’d ordered a batch of tests each for the other covered members of our household.

If I order directly from the preferred prescription provider, I don’t have to wait for reimbursement. Paying nothing out of pocket seemed like the best option. Now I know better.

For our household, in the future, if I’m the one who requires testing, I should go to a local pharmacy and purchase Abbott’s BinaxNOW tests instead of accepting the option available via mail-order without any out-of pocket expense. This will be a smarter choice given my manual limitations.

I believe it is highly probable that Abbott’s BinaxNOW, Roche’s COVID-19 At-Home test kit, and ACON’s FlowFlex have similar probabilities of correctly detecting the novel coronavirus responsible for the chaos and societal disruption of 2020-2022. That said, I doubt the ability of the latter to work for me, with my limited hand strength.

Both the Roche and the ACON FlowFlex test require a user to firmly pinch the included vial between one’s fingers for an extended period of time to get an accurate result. I doubt I could do this reliably, repeatedly, for accurate test results.

I did experiment with my teen’s FlowFlex vial post-test to determine that I’m capable of dispensing the mixed drops with that product without too much discomfort, but dispensing four drops into the test cartridge is less effortful for some of us with weak phalanges than holding tight to the tube while spinning the test swab therein.I felt compelled to compose and post this particular piece as quickly as possible to share my experience with the world. Had I only tried that first test brand, that I happened upon at my local pharmacy last fall, I would have no idea how tricky other versions of COVID-19 tests might be for those of us with more limited mobility.

It is worth reporting that, if I did not have such limitations to my dexterity, I would prefer the more compact packaging offered by Roche and ACON Labs over Abbott’s fairly bulky box, especially for travel. The Roche multi-pack uses far less packaging for four tests than two boxes containing two each of the BinaxNOW. Roche/FlowFlex’s volume will be decidedly less if packed in a suitcase.

Aside from the need to firmly grasp a plastic tube for steps five and six (Roche)/step 2 (ACON’s FlowFlex), I would not have such a distinct preference for Abbott’s BinaxNOW over the competitors. That being said, my limitations have settled in as a near constant over the past decade, and I no longer expect my own normal to return to a more median average.

From my perspective, if you require an at-home COVID-19 diagnostic test, and you have limitations to your manual dexterity, you should try to get an Abbott BinaxNOW antigen test or a molecular one from Cue Health.

If your hands are crippled by arthritis, and you must use Roche or ACON Lab’s tests, ask a fully able bodied friend for assistance, if possible.

♦

Disclosure: The author of this post owns 51.044 shares of ABBOTT LABORATORIES (ABT) stock at the time of writing. Abbott Labs makes the BinaxNOW test kit product.

†I find written directions easy to follow and actually enjoy the step-by-step process of assembling LEGO toys and IKEA furniture kits, so my experience may not reflect that of average people.