It is the end of the week and time for a rant thinly disguised as a plea....
Some of you may know I used to edit a journal on biosensors and we had lots of papers on how various clever people round the world were perfecting a portable BG meter. This was in the early 1990s and thanks to all that work we can buy a gadget cheaply that was unheard of just a few decades ago. Each one in the right hands is a boon to DM sufferers... but isn't it time for the next step?
This testing biz has been getting me down. After a period of not doing it I have been doing a scatter graph experiment all week to see the highs and lows. So far I have over a dozen points... one pin prick for each one... data literally born in blood and pain. This truly is not a lot of fun. I commiz myself that so far no results have been in double figures nor under four.
That said it occurs to me that we are way overdue for something simpler than this method of testing.
Like mentioned elsewhere on this forum each test is not necessarily accurate nor even correct. And sometimes I get it slightly wrong and the meter rejects the sample so I have to start again wasting a strip and usually suffering another pin prick let alone the faff etc it builds up to become a mighty inconvenience.
OK, I know that in time I shall gain insight into what food suits and what doesn't and I can test less. But I want to keep an eye on my bloods several times a week for "peace of mind".
It is really is overdue for something simpler and easier than this meter system.
So forgive me when I am unimpressed with the Mars rover success. Never mind that engineering excellence let us get back down to Earth and make the lives of so many DM sufferers just a little easier to cope with.
But of course this is just the tip of an iceberg, maybe industry is not interested. After all every strip pack they sell is money in the bank, a "non-invasive" system using say a LED would have no disposables and their cash cow bonanza would be over.
I foresee an ear-ring gadget like a Bluetooth phone thing that fires a beam of light through the blood vessels in an earlobe and a number pops on our phone display.... come on industry it can't be that hard can it? After all, a simpler non-painful method might make all the difference to the survival of all of us now and to come.
Some of you may know I used to edit a journal on biosensors and we had lots of papers on how various clever people round the world were perfecting a portable BG meter. This was in the early 1990s and thanks to all that work we can buy a gadget cheaply that was unheard of just a few decades ago. Each one in the right hands is a boon to DM sufferers... but isn't it time for the next step?
This testing biz has been getting me down. After a period of not doing it I have been doing a scatter graph experiment all week to see the highs and lows. So far I have over a dozen points... one pin prick for each one... data literally born in blood and pain. This truly is not a lot of fun. I commiz myself that so far no results have been in double figures nor under four.
That said it occurs to me that we are way overdue for something simpler than this method of testing.
Like mentioned elsewhere on this forum each test is not necessarily accurate nor even correct. And sometimes I get it slightly wrong and the meter rejects the sample so I have to start again wasting a strip and usually suffering another pin prick let alone the faff etc it builds up to become a mighty inconvenience.
OK, I know that in time I shall gain insight into what food suits and what doesn't and I can test less. But I want to keep an eye on my bloods several times a week for "peace of mind".
It is really is overdue for something simpler and easier than this meter system.
So forgive me when I am unimpressed with the Mars rover success. Never mind that engineering excellence let us get back down to Earth and make the lives of so many DM sufferers just a little easier to cope with.
But of course this is just the tip of an iceberg, maybe industry is not interested. After all every strip pack they sell is money in the bank, a "non-invasive" system using say a LED would have no disposables and their cash cow bonanza would be over.
I foresee an ear-ring gadget like a Bluetooth phone thing that fires a beam of light through the blood vessels in an earlobe and a number pops on our phone display.... come on industry it can't be that hard can it? After all, a simpler non-painful method might make all the difference to the survival of all of us now and to come.
