My Experience Doing the 23 & Me Health and Ancestry DNA Kit

It seems that there has been a hype about getting your genetic ancestry and other genetic information tested. As a medical student, now Doctor, I was genuinely curious about this for the longest time. Part of the issue at first was the fact that there are numerous kits for this. On Black Friday my husband decided to buy one for himself. After he got his results and everything I decided to get the same one. The 23 & Me Health and Ancestry Kit. The kits are expensive. So in order to save some money, I took advantage of Valentine’s Day sale on the 23 & Me site. I have now had this kit for several months but I never got around to doing it. Well, I have finally decided to go through with it and also share the experience with all of you. In this post I will share general information about the kit, what it includes, the app and my actual experience doing it.

The 23 & Me Kit:

The kit arrived fairly fast. Especially so considering there have been many delays with mail since after Hurricane Maria. They send you a tracking number that really allows you to monitor the package and know exactly when to expect the kit to arrive. The package is a small rectangular box and inside it features all aspects of the kit. It includes the tube where you put the saliva sample, and a biohazard bag. It also features the shipping label for when you take the sample you can shit it out as soon as possible. In addition, it contains a small booklet with instructions and directing you to activate your account with the kit ID number. This action then redirects you to download the app and activate your account. As for the kit I feel it is very simple for any person to do and follow the instructions. The important thing for the process to be done correctly is to remember to send it out quickly and making sure it does not get exposed to extreme temperatures.

The App:

I love the app. It is so much fun and so user friendly. My favorite aspect is the fact that you can do question sets that ask you about a broad number of categories. I find a lot of these questions very cool to answer but I feel like the common person with absolutely NO medical knowledge might have a hard time answering SOME of these questions. The best part is that these questions are used to better understand the relationship between DNA/Genes and conditions, behaviors, etc. They are also studying populations and seeing how different traits are expressed within them. The app also lets you track your kit from when you ship it to when it’s analyzed. For me it’s a pretty cool experience and I like that they make you feel included in the whole process.

My Experience:

So far my experience has been really good. I took a couple of months to mail out the kit because I kept putting it off to write this post. My husband did his right away and he got all of his results in about 6-8 weeks. The instructions are really easy to follow. I love their app and the question sets, they were incredibly entertaining to do. My only worry with this is what I mentioned above, some of the questions may not be easy to understand/answer by some people. For the most part they have a help/support area and they tend to explain these terms broadly. As such it should not be a major issue and everything can be googled to find more information. I am excited to see my results for both ancestry and the health markers they investigate.

You can select different variants to have analyzed as well as they are constantly adding to their repertoire of genetic information. As for me, I chose to have all of the possible health risk variants analyzed. I really liked doing this and I will expand on this post when I get my results! If you want to receive a 20% the kit of your preference, use THIS LINK and you will receive a 20% on your order. This is a referral link so I get credits for future purchases with 23 & Me!

Have you thought of getting your DNA analyzed? Had you heard about 23 & Me?  

Thanks for reading!

XO

Jani

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