New one on me....

Going to check this out , thanks.

I have to admit, I like the idea, but am uncomfortable believing this:

"Self-care is the new healthcare, and this really is about becoming self-reliant," Ms Williamson says.

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When it's said by someone who does this:

Wayne Maddren was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes four years ago. He's supposed to test his blood sugar levels three times a day, but doesn't like pricking his fingers.

"I am probably not that good at doing that," says Mr Maddren. "I get quite slack, I might miss out on two or three days. The other thing too is that your fingers get very sore."

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No-one likes it. But we all do it because it's important to self-management.* "Sore fingers - can't be bothered until Wednesday!" isn't the mantra of an advocate of self-management. Though it might be the mantra of someone who's pushing a product costing $270 that removes the need for finger pricking... oh, bananza!

Sorry. Cynicism.

There are other types of technology in development, so hope (and lots of money) might not yet be lost:

http://labiotech.eu/needle-free-glucose-monitoring-for-diabetes-medtech/


*I have T2 and test roughly 4 times a day on 2 meters (significant because I need to lance deeply enough to draw a large enough drop to feed to each meter - they're not little stabs**). I have 10 fingers each with 2 sides, so 20 available pricking sites. That means I cycle back to site 1 after roughly 5 days, which is plenty of time to heal up and not over-use a particular spot.

And I get that there are people who just hate needles as well as people who have to prick their fingers constantly, and I'm completely behind you. It's not the hatred of pricking fingers I'm taking issue with, but the fact that someone who can't manage a 5-day finger cycle and will lapse for "up to 3 days" is advocating self-management.

As the saying goes, "Physician, heal thyself."


** How hard I worked to avoid all and any "accidentally-on-purpose" dirty jokes there. Phew!***


*** Oh, maaaaan, by implying that I nearly made the jokes, does that actually mean I ended up making them after all!?

Meta-humour is hard.****


**** Dammit!

SockFiddler said:

Meta-humour is hard.****

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You have a gift for it!

Looks like a complete and utter scam to me.

Quite apart from the fact that this page

http://www.helosmart.com/helo-features/

says that, "In the future the device may test for...blood sugar levels" i.e. not now and probably not ever, other bits of it proclaim the wonders of, "the beneficial health effects of natural mineral stones." which you can apparently buy as add ons.

Sensing bg through infrared, as suggested in the article, is in it's infancy.

I'm calling bullsh*t on this one.

This will not cheer up the people who supply consumables for the finger prick meters. About as welcome as the digital camera was to Kodak. I think I want to see it actually work first before I get too excited.

i switch off my attention as soon as there is any mention of "natural healing stones". they may work fine in World of Warcraft, but I've yet to see anyone grow a new leg by the use of magic crystals in real life. It's probably like those magnetic bangles that were supposed to cure everything from migraine to cancer that were all the rage a few years ago.

barrym said:

My fear too, but I hope for this sort of tech. There's https://epichealth.io/ also non invasive, so there not on their own.

I didn't take to the overtly commercial emphasis of the web site, a bit full on. But fingers crossed.....

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There's a few things out there. http://sugarbeat.com got a bit of attention on here a while back but they're not selling it yet.

I think the problem with non-invasive sensing is that with blood meters you're testing at source, minimally invasive things like libre and dexcom are testing interstitial fluid glucose so it's one step removed and assumptions have to be made which are sometimes wrong, but non-invasive testing is a furthet step removed so it's just adding another layer of uncertainty. Sugarbeat, for example, drags interstitial fluid out of pores and tests it out of body unlike libre which tests it in situ. It'll probably be the same as gluco-watch which died a death after people found it irritated their skin and wasn't particularly accurate.

I was put off a bit by senseonics eversense https://ous.eversensediabetes.com/products/ It's about as invasive as you can get! But might be handy for backpackers who don't want to cart 90 fays worth of libres around in their backpacks! If, when, they start selling it, curiousity is going to get the better of me...

Squire Fulwood said:

This will not cheer up the people who supply consumables for the finger prick meters. About as welcome as the digital camera was to Kodak. I think I want to see it actually work first before I get too excited.

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But Kodak invented the digital camera! Turkeys voting for Christmas?

barrym said:

We shouldn't be too dismissive of original thinking

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I'm all for innovation but these things are still in their infancy. I picked up a second hand copy of Wiley - In Vivo Glucose Sensing which seems to be the standard reference work for developers. Most of it is way over the very little I've remembered from Higher chemistry, physics from thirty three years ago (yikes, has it been that long?!) but there's a few chapters on non-invasive methods such as infra-red spectroscopy which all seem to say they can measure changes but they're not entirely sure what substance they are measuring i.e. is it glucose or something else!

It's an interesting book if you're interested in the field. I'm sure I'm going to be in a pub quiz some day where I can confidently answer that glucose oxidase breaks glucose down into hydrogen peroxide and d glucono 1.5 lactone!

Shiba Park said:

But Kodak invented the digital camera! Turkeys voting for Christmas?

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I was going to say Ilford so I picked a bad example.

EDIT: Found this.

"Kodak did make money off of the digital camera patent — billions in fact — until it ran out in 2007. But by the time the company embraced digital, it was too late. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012."

barrym said:

I wish I'd known that, I was only asked about it yesterday

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Yeah, maybe useful for pub quizzes, but I've made a mental note to not use it as a conversational gambit on first dates...

barrym said:

Check this out. One of the new breed of non invasive monitors. Looks great.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/healt...ake-the-sting-out-of-monitoring-diabetes.html

Then if you go to http://www.helosmart.com it still looks great but a dodgy business model IMHO, not quite pyramid selling, but pyramid commission on referrals it seems. Still you don't have to get involved I suppose just to buy and use one.

Hopefully it will come this year and live up to the marketing.

Apparently the wrist band as is doesn't change, just the app. So they must already be capturing stuff now that with a different analysis can estimate BG. Dammed clever if it works.

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The science behind this stinks! I saw a similar explanation for the Aetherius energy battery that they used to flog in Glastonbury. It has its roots in UFO and healing crystals. Nope, not impressed so far. Someone in this neck of the woods got sent to jail for fraud after selling fake bomb detectors in Iraq.

Mystic minerals indeed. I already taught my grandmother how to suck eggs, so go find another sucker. There is a potential meter being developed at Leeds Uni using light reflection techniques that may become viable and which I would support. I did not see anything about measuring sugar levels in the second link.

Stop Press - the Leeds Uni venture did not make it, They licenced Glucosense for manufacture, but this company ceased trading earlier this year,

barrym said:

Check this out. One of the new breed of non invasive monitors. Looks great.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/healt...ake-the-sting-out-of-monitoring-diabetes.html

Then if you go to http://www.helosmart.com it still looks great but a dodgy business model IMHO, not quite pyramid selling, but pyramid commission on referrals it seems. Still you don't have to get involved I suppose just to buy and use one.

Hopefully it will come this year and live up to the marketing.

Apparently the wrist band as is doesn't change, just the app. So they must already be capturing stuff now that with a different analysis can estimate BG. Dammed clever if it works.

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Yes this is it
It's out soon so I'll be getting one for sure
270 is s good price too
Thanks

SockFiddler said:

*I have T2 and test roughly 4 times a day on 2 meters (significant because I need to lance deeply enough to draw a large enough drop to feed to each meter - they're not little stabs**). I have 10 fingers each with 2 sides, so 20 available pricking sites. That means I cycle back to site 1 after roughly 5 days, which is plenty of time to heal up and not over-use a particular spot.

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This makes me think you need to get a different meter. I am using the TEE@ and I certainly don't have to lance deeply to produce the tiny drop of blood it requires, despite the fact that I suffer from Raynaud's, which means my fingers are not the easiest to get blood from. In fact when I want to retest, the original drop of blood still has enough left for me to do this without lancing again. I only use the 4 fingers on my left hand, as I don't want to risk making the fingers and thumbs I use most sore and being a beginner I test between 8 and 10 times a day. I use whichever finger seems the most promising at the moment of testing, so one finger may be used quite a few times a day. They don't seem to require much time to heal.