Friday, June 16, 2006
If it didn’t hurt, would you check your blood glucose level more often? I know that I would probably check mine six or eight times a day, if it were painless.
Maybe you already use alternative sites, particularly your arm. We have fewer nerve endings there, so it seldom hurts. However, I think that my experience is typical that sometimes my arm hurts a lot when I test there. And I often end up with bruises that take days to disappear. Worse, alternative sites don’t give good readings when you need them most.
Right now the best we can do is to use as good a lancing device as we can get. Technically, the best available in the United States now is the Accu-Chek Multiclix . This is the lancing device that I use now.
While other lancing devices are spring driven, the Multiclix uses a cam for precise linear action. Theoretically, the cam action of the Multiclix is the same as its predecessor, the Softclix. But unpublished user comparisons by a competing company show that the Multiclix is less painful.
Soon, we will have several even better choices.
By the end of the year we will probably be able to buy the Pelikan Sun lancing device, which I wrote about in March. The manufacturer, Pelikan Technologies in Palo Alto, California, just introduced it in Australia, where demand for it is so great compared to the company’s manufacturing capacity that they are back ordered, even though it sells for the equivalent of US$200.
A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to meet with a senior officer of Pelikan Technologies at the 66th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association. Disclosure: under contract I wrote a white paper for the company describing the advantages of the Pelikan Sun.
I also met with the top people at several companies that presented non-invasive meters at this huge convention. Eventually, it is these and other non-invasive meters that will change everything about testing for us.
Most of the enthusiasm for the new blood glucose meters is for the OTHER new type – continuous sensors. While I have written a lot about them, I came back from the ADA convention convinced that many more people will use and benefit from the forthcoming non-invasive meters.
While the continuous sensors will help us control our highs and lows better than ever before, they are expensive and not yet covered by insurance. There aren’t any non-invasive meters in production yet, but I expect that they will be in the same price range as those meters we can buy now.
Four companies presented information about their non-invasive meters at the ADA convention. They didn’t show the meters themselves. Rather, they presented posters, which are displays about 4 or 5 feet wide.
Strangely, none of these meters came from American companies. Two of the companies are Israeli, one is British, and one is Australian.
Each of these meters uses a different technology. Potentially, we might also be able to use each of them as continuous sensors.
Glucon Inc.’s CEO Dan Goldberger is in Boulder, Colorado, where I live, but the research and development is in Petach Tikva, Israel. I met with Dr. Ram Weiss, an endocrinologist at the Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Medicine in Jerusalem, who presented Glucon’s poster.
Maybe you already use alternative sites, particularly your arm. We have fewer nerve endings there, so it seldom hurts. However, I think that my experience is typical that sometimes my arm hurts a lot when I test there. And I often end up with bruises that take days to disappear. Worse, alternative sites don’t give good readings when you need them most.
Right now the best we can do is to use as good a lancing device as we can get. Technically, the best available in the United States now is the Accu-Chek Multiclix . This is the lancing device that I use now.
While other lancing devices are spring driven, the Multiclix uses a cam for precise linear action. Theoretically, the cam action of the Multiclix is the same as its predecessor, the Softclix. But unpublished user comparisons by a competing company show that the Multiclix is less painful.
Soon, we will have several even better choices.
By the end of the year we will probably be able to buy the Pelikan Sun lancing device, which I wrote about in March. The manufacturer, Pelikan Technologies in Palo Alto, California, just introduced it in Australia, where demand for it is so great compared to the company’s manufacturing capacity that they are back ordered, even though it sells for the equivalent of US$200.
A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to meet with a senior officer of Pelikan Technologies at the 66th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association. Disclosure: under contract I wrote a white paper for the company describing the advantages of the Pelikan Sun.
I also met with the top people at several companies that presented non-invasive meters at this huge convention. Eventually, it is these and other non-invasive meters that will change everything about testing for us.
Most of the enthusiasm for the new blood glucose meters is for the OTHER new type – continuous sensors. While I have written a lot about them, I came back from the ADA convention convinced that many more people will use and benefit from the forthcoming non-invasive meters.
While the continuous sensors will help us control our highs and lows better than ever before, they are expensive and not yet covered by insurance. There aren’t any non-invasive meters in production yet, but I expect that they will be in the same price range as those meters we can buy now.
Four companies presented information about their non-invasive meters at the ADA convention. They didn’t show the meters themselves. Rather, they presented posters, which are displays about 4 or 5 feet wide.
Strangely, none of these meters came from American companies. Two of the companies are Israeli, one is British, and one is Australian.
Each of these meters uses a different technology. Potentially, we might also be able to use each of them as continuous sensors.
Glucon Inc.’s CEO Dan Goldberger is in Boulder, Colorado, where I live, but the research and development is in Petach Tikva, Israel. I met with Dr. Ram Weiss, an endocrinologist at the Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Medicine in Jerusalem, who presented Glucon’s poster.
