Odd Question involving drug testing and normal ranges.

[OceansEve]

Twice in my life I have been accused of taking drugs, both times in the ER for two totally different reasons and years apart. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but I remember it had something to do with a normal range and me being slightly outside of it. I can't remember which thing it was but I'm hoping someone on here would give me a good idea. Why? After talking to my mother this past week remembering the last time I was in the ER she remarked how I had tested out of normal range when I was 6. Which got me to thinking, maybe this is something that should be addressed. It might explain some of the oddities and difficulties about me. I know at one time I had the results on paper from one of the ER visits, I've even looked at it once since then, but I have no idea where it is now. I remember thinking the last time that I thought they were accusing me of using meth, tho I am not positive why I thought it was that in particular, perhaps it sounded like methamphetamine? Can anyone here shed some light on this for me because my googling is not very promising. Thanks!

[Oubliette8]

There are numerous normal substances that people consume that can lead to a false positive drug test. A well known one is that eating food containing poppy seeds can lead to a false positive for opium. But many prescription and over the counter drugs also produce false positives for various drug. If you google "false positive drug test" you'll find some articles outlining various different medications and what false positives they produce. Even simple things like antibiotics and allergy meds can do this. Its possible that your body metabolizes compounds slightly differently and so your blood work shows slightly higher levels than normal. Or its possible they have their test set too sensitively. (or that they just keep mixing your results up with that of an actual druggie!) the problem with the test is that it does not search specifically for say, meth, but rather for by products or compounds that are similar. And many normal, non-intoxicating substances can produce those same by products or have similar structures. For instance, the only thing separating the oxygen we need to breathe from deadly ozone is a single oxygen molecule, the same for water we need to drink and Hydrogen Peroxide which will make us vomit. The tests may look for similar chemical structures, but sometimes, benign stuff is very similar to harmful compounds.