Managing Your Diabetes
Checking your blood sugar levels when you have diabetes is very important. That’s why the University of Calgary has created the e-Mosquito to provide reliable blood testing for diabetics. This device could replace pricking your finger and the use of a glucometer.
When you are a diabetic, management of your blood glucose levels can be difficult. To assess blood glucose levels, diabetics must regularly prick their finger with a lancet to get a blood sample. Then, add the blood sample on the test strip to the glucometer. This device will measure the current blood sugar level. With the e-Mosquito, you can say goodbye to painful, inconvenient and quite time-consuming blood glucose testing from your fingertip.
Your doctor will advise you on how often to test during the day. For some diabetics after waking up, before or after snacks and meals, and before bed is enough times. To keep in control of your diabetes, you should at least check your blood four times per day. The most severe blood glucose management patients may have to test up to 20 times per day. When testing becomes that frequent, a patient is most likely going to need to wear a pump that will allow insulin to enter the body. This continuous monitoring will keep a Type 1 diabetic from extreme blood glucose levels.
New Minimally Invasive Device To Test Blood Glucose Levels
A new device has been created and released from the team of electrical engineers at the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary. The innovation will draw blood to test your blood glucose levels every couple of hours. It is a device that you can wear around your wrist like a watch; it is about the size of a stack of cards. Calgary notes that this product will work effectively as a portable glucometer and is minimally invasive.
How It Works
The e-Mosquito will monitor your blood glucose levels throughout the day as you wear it. Like a mosquito, the device will bite you to draw the blood to test. The bite comes from a small needle called an SMA-based microactuator and it penetrates 3.55 mm. SMA stands for shape memory alloy. According to TechCrunch, each bite is “periodic, spontaneous and autonomous.” During testing, “19 out of 23 actuators successfully reached capillary vessels beneath the wrists.” The blood then comes up to the surface of the skin where the drop is sensed and can be read. Don’t worry, 3.55 mm is not deep enough to hit a nerve.
The bite offers little to no pain when penetrating. Once the blood droplet is at the skin’s surface, the e-Mosquito reads and transmits the information wirelessly to a phone or a medical recipient’s computer.
The biting device is less invasive than lancets patients use to prick their finger. Uitlize the e-Mosquito for various purposes. Not only is the bite useful for diabetics, it also performs regular genetic testing or any type of blood analysis that is necessary on a semi-frequent basis.
Interchanging The Patch- Future Resolutions
Right now, there are four needles on each patch on the e-Mosquito. Most diabetics need to check blood glucose levels more than four times per day so switching the patch is the next step for making this device even more efficient. Once more needles are added, the patch can be worn for a longer period and patients can sleep with the device. The e-Mosquito will then check their blood and alarm them to wake up only if levels are too high or low.
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