I had a lesion pop up on my lip overnight and was concerned it could be a cold sore. I went to urgent care this morning and provider didn’t think it was a cold sore, but swabbed using PCR anyway. 

She did ask me if it was tender and stated she wanted to make sure she got enough to swab, if that helps your assessment any. 

PCR swabs are quite sensitive as they are looking for genetic material of the virus, they aren't trying to grow anything (like a culture).  There are false negatives on the PCR swabs - if not enough virus is there to detect or the swab procedure was not aggressive enough.  But normal swabbing should pick up virus if it was a cold sore.  Sounds like this provider was very interested in getting a good swab which is excellent!---

Yea, I could feel the swab on my lip even though it wasn’t a vigorous swab. I think I just got worried that the swab wasn’t adequate because she didn’t want to hurt me. And she did also mention that she wanted to “get it all around.” So it seems like she did a good enough job? 

Sorry and I do want into make sure you know that she didn’t swab very vigorously, but I’m assuming you knew that since you mentioned “regular swabbing”? 

Yes, I think that should be adequate, I'm glad she wanted to get it "all around"---