u/AEAur

Any PortaCount testers out there eager to test tapes?

Offering a $100 Amazon gift card to tester(s) who will test the following in PortaCount N99 (full spectrum) mode on a variety of faces and masks and share their HMFF (fit scores) here. To test:

• 3M Microfoam tape vs Nexcare Waterproof Foam tape, vs double-sided tape (e.g., Pro 1502 tape)
• BNX trifold compared to the BNX bifold and to other masks without foam such as the 3M Vflex or CAN99 — on the same persons.

If interested, message me with rough estimate of how many people you can test and by when.

I don’t care where you buy stuff, but I did just make a post of current Prime Day deals. I just care that we get test results in N99 (full spectrum) mode for the tapes, the BNX trifold., and comparison masks.

(If agreed, I think you’ll have to give me an email to have Amazon send it to? Proton Pass offers extra email aliases.)

Amazon sale: Nexcare Waterproof Foam tape $3.74 (-53%)

Prime Day, Prime Only deals (prime often has a free trial.):

• 3M Microfoam tape $20. (12 rolls of 1” or 6rolls of 2” or 4 rolls of 3” — 5.5 yards each.)
• Well Before 3D Pro earloop KN95 10pk $19-21
• The BNX trifolds 20pk for $15-17. (Caveat: I cannot find a single social media report of these passing QNFT in N99 mode, nor QLFT with Bitrex. Bitrex full QLFT and N99 mode results wanted🙇‍♀️💝)

An alternate place to buy the tape for $2 per 1” roll + $7 shipping https://medicalmonks.com/product/microfoam-surgical-tape.
Also sells small tubes of Cavilon Barrier Cream.

Amazon Prime has a small discount today on the 6 pack of small vials (2.5ml 3-5 fit tests each) of

• Allegro Industries Bitter Fit Test Solution
• Allegro Industries Bitter Sensitivity Solution
• Each ~$17 (-15%) 6 ok 2.5ml each

The 3M 55ml bottles are currently $21 (not a sale) each (3M Bitter Fit Test Solution and 3M Bitter Sensitivity Solution) at Stauffersafety.com. They usually offer free shipping with $50.

You also need a nano mister, and a 5 gallon ziplock. There are many nano-misters on sale too. Please suggest one if you’ve tried one!

Qualitative testing with a sensitivity threshold check is accurate to a 1% leakage and is has the advantage that you can check the fit of your mask anytime.

DIY fit test Instructions https://fittests4all.com/v2.0/ (edited) https://mathburritos.org/fit-test-kit-v1/

Threshold check with premade sensitivity solution is not complicated. 3M video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnr60sXnXA (sensitivity test from 2:15)

A nano-mister may eventually clog if not cleaned and dried well each time (some use a little alcohol to ensure not water residue inside).

Many people are more sensitive to the Bitrex than the saccharine, meaning they can detect a very small leak with Bitrex that they don’t detect with saccharine.

Designing studies for post-treatment Lyme disease and other infection-associated chronic illnesses, Brain, June 2026, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awag016

Synopsis via https://www.newswise.com/articles/flawed-but-correctable-research-hindered-progress-in-infection-triggered-chronic-conditions-including-lyme-disease-and-long-covid

Flawed but Correctable Research Hindered Progress in Infection-Triggered Chronic Conditions, including Lyme disease and Long COVID

> Thousands of Americans develop chronic persistent symptoms—such as fatigue, cognitive difficulties ("brain fog"), and other debilitating issues—each year following acute infections from Lyme disease, COVID-19, and other pathogens. Efforts to identify causes and produce treatments have failed. However, 16 leading researchers think they know part of the problem: study design. >In an article in Brain, researchers from Rutgers University, the National Institutes of Health, Rockefeller University, New York Medical College, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and other institutions contend that studies of infection-associated chronic illnesses suffer recurring problems such as the failure to prove participants have the relevant pathogen.

Key Challenges in Lyme Disease Research > Up to 20% of the roughly 476,000 Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year develop chronic, persistent cognitive impairment, fatigue and pain known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. > Researchers have spent decades looking for causes and cures, but many of their studies included anybody with only Lyme antibodies or bull’s-eye rashes rather than documenting Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Unfortunately, Lone Star tick bites, drug reactions and other conditions can produce identical rashes, and antibody tests detect only past exposure, not active infection. The result is that studies may include people with entirely different diseases.  > “How can studies produce concrete conclusions about Lyme when you don’t know if patients really had Lyme disease or if they had a mimicking condition?” asked the paper’s corresponding author, Steven Schutzer, a physician-scientist and professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. > The authors also identified additional methodological shortcomings in prior research regarding control groups and sample handling. 

Parallels with Long COVID and Broader Implications > Studies of Long COVID, which affects an estimated 9 million Americans, face similar challenges, particularly the tendency to group patients with possible different underlying mechanisms into a single population. Research into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome is even more difficult because no causative pathogen has been identified. Yet progress is possible, even without knowledge of the underlying infection. The authors point to multiple sclerosis (MS) as evidence that rigorous study design has yielded helpful FDA-approved treatments.

Looking Ahead > “The framework we advocate is a major step forward since it provides rigorous and well-thought-out guidelines for every aspect of conducting clinical trials in this patient population,” said coauthor Avindra Nath, physician-scientist and clinical director of the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. > “Patients with post-infectious conditions have been waiting far too long for answers,” said Jacqueline Becker, a neuropsychologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a coauthor on the paper. “If we want clinical trials that actually lead to treatments, we have to get the fundamentals right: we must confirm diagnoses, choose the right comparison groups, and treat patient populations as distinct rather than lumping everyone together. Patients deserve that rigor.”