Pricking your finger with a needle over and over to determine blood sugar levels is no fun. And diabetics face the unpleasant fact that they will have to repeat the exercise thousands of times in the future. Those who dread the task of daily finger-pricking may be interested in a new device from Australia called the Pelikan Sun. This little gadget is a digital lancing device. It works by sensing the minimum depth needed to extract enough blood to test blood sugar levels. By using the minimum possible depth, the needle avoids going deep enough to hit nerve endings.
The Pelikan Sun's developers and diabetes experts say a device like this could really help people better manage their diabetes. There are a lot of people out there who don't test as regularly as they should because they hate the finger-pricking and needles. And, of course, parents of diabetic kids may jump at the chance to get a device like this, to save their children the pain of frequent lancet-pricks.
There must be an American equivalent of this device. Do any readers have anything like this?
1. Of course, the continuous monitoring devices that will soon be available will reduce and hopefully eliminate the need for finger sticks.
Posted at 1:40PM on Jun 1st 2006 by Bob