Researchers test tattoo sensor's accuracy at detecting glucose levels in diabetes patients

[Northerner]

For Angela Valdez, being diagnosed with diabetes was an awakening. The disorder ran in her family, but she didn't think it would happen to her. And when it did, she acted by modifying her diet and physical activity. She was doing everything right-;almost.

"I don't handle monitoring my diabetes as I should," said Valdez. "I have the diet down a lot better now and I take my medication as I should, but the finger pricking is a struggle for me. I only test if I feel bad. If I don't feel my blood sugar level is high, and I'm taking the pill every day, I think I'm alright. Which is really bad thinking, but the pin prick is terrifying."

Valdez one of 29 million people living with diabetes in the United States for whom monitoring their blood glucose (blood sugar) level is an integral component of managing their condition. Understanding how a patient's sugar levels ebb and flow over the course of time can guide medication regimens and suggest changes that may improve quality of life, perhaps even save it.

Unfortunately, like Valdez, many patients with diabetes do not track their blood glucose regularly. According to Edward Chao, DO, associate clinical professor of medicine at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and a physician at VA San Diego Healthcare System, one-quarter of persons receiving insulin treatment infrequently or never test their blood glucose. Another 65 percent of patients who use other drugs to treat their diabetes test just once a month or less.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...ting-glucose-levels-in-diabetes-patients.aspx

Thanks to the penny-pinching attitudes of many CCGs, many of those highly-motivated to test here are denied the capability Let's hope that, if this becomes a reality, it doesn't cost the Earth 🙄

 

[mikeyB]

A dollar a strip? Flipping heck, I’m not surprised folk don’t test much in the US. Never mind how much this will cost.

Anyway, it won’t replace blood test strips any more than the Libre or CGMs. Like them, it’s testing interstitial fluid.

 

[Matt Cycle]

Don't they all get medicare or some sort of health insurance. The lady in the article says she doesn't many blood tests because it's terrifying and not because of cost. I suspect a lot of people are the same or just can't be arsed.

Sounds like this device still needs a fair bit of work on it.

 

[Northerner]

Don't they all get medicare or some sort of health insurance. The lady in the article says she doesn't many blood tests because it's terrifying and not because of cost. I suspect a lot of people are the same or just can't be arsed.

Sounds like this device still needs a fair bit of work on it.

I think a lot of people (most?) have to pay towards the costs, even with good insurance, although I've read that insurers prefer people to test because they know it can help with control - the opposite to what many of our healthcare professionals seem to think.

I appreciate people have phobias for things, but really they are probably a minority. Finger-pricking shouldn't be 'terrifying' if you are doing it right - stubbing your toe, treading on lego or catching the quick on your fingernails is far more painful! 😱

 

[mikeyB]

Well, you should pack your Lego away properly, Northie.

I agree that insurers like people to test more, but when, as the article says, a significant number of insulin using folk test only once a month or less, is it the cost or education that is the problem?

 

[Northerner]

Well, you should pack your Lego away properly, Northie.

I agree that insurers like people to test more, but when, as the article says, a significant number of insulin using folk test only once a month or less, is it the cost or education that is the problem?

Given the price of insulin over there, maybe they don't have much left over for testing! 😱 But yes, there is undoubtedly a lack of education if insulin-users in particular are only testing once a month - they'd all lose their licenses if they tried that on over here! 😱

 

[Robin]

Given the price of insulin over there, maybe they don't have much left over for testing! 😱 But yes, there is undoubtedly a lack of education if insulin-users in particular are only testing once a month - they'd all lose their licenses if they tried that on over here! 😱

I was looking up driving in some of the United States, because I might be driving whilst there at some point, and they all just had a vague, 'it might be an idea if you had some notion of your levels before you set out, just be sensible' not the precise ones we have.

 

[Sally71]

What on earth is the point of only testing once a month, you might as well not bother at all, you wouldn't learn anything useful at all!

My mum thinks we test far too much, she goes some whole days without bothering at all and has other days where she's a bit more careful. She says she knows what she feels like and judges everything based on that. I have to remember that she was diagnosed in 1967 when you couldn't test your own blood because the equipment wasn't available, so maybe to her it isn't essential, she's still here after 50 years of T1! I've tried to explain to her that we are only doing what we've been taught, we were told the absolute minimum is mealtimes and bedtime, it makes sense to test at mealtimes because then you can adjust your dose accordingly and iron out some of the peaks and troughs a bit (and why would you not want to do that!), and on a pump as well you have to be extra careful because if something goes wrong that the pump cannot tell you about, you are in deep trouble very quickly. As my daughter proved last week, she forgot to plug her pump in after her shower, went to bed at 9pm and at 3am when I did a random check the Libre was reading HI (and had been flatline st the top of the range for at least a couple of hours) and finger prick read 26.5 😱😱😱 Daughter had already been to the loo and noticed what the problem was, so she'd plugged back in, we did a 9u correction and by morning she was back down to 11 and normal ketone levels, was feeling a bit rough until well into the afternoon though

I still don't think my mum gets it, well we each do it our own way I suppose, I don't say anything to her about I think she should test more, she's been dealing with it longer than I've been alive! She does mention occasionally that her hba1c isn't as good as my daughter's though, hmmm I wonder why that might be, I'll carry on doing it my way thank you!

CGMs and similar devices don't completely remove the need for finger pricking, they do reduce it a lot though, we use about half as many test strips now as we did before we got the Libre, so that's got to be good! I'm glad we don't live in the USA, I feel so sorry for people who can't afford their medications, and equipment, how can modern life be like that?