Invention for diabetics reduces needle sticks

This device makes it easier for diabetics to monitor glucose levels and it can be worn for 3 days. It requires a prescription and appears to be pretty affordable. The inventor, a woman who was diagnosed with diabetes type 1 after pregnancy, put her brain to work and created the I-Port. By partnering with an endocrinologist in Austin, Texas the device is becoming a real success for many. Around 8 percent of the population in Texas has been diagnosed with diabetes. In looking at the picture here, the injection takes place with the skin patch and not the skin each time. The choices for diabetics keep growing and changing for the better and is helping to create a better quality of life for those diagnosed. BD

When Catherine "KK" Patton was diagnosed with diabetes seven years ago, the prospect of injecting herself with insulin at least four times a day for the rest of her life was depressing, she said. "I felt like a pin cushion," the 33-year-old Austinite said. "I thought, 'There's got to be something easier.' "

She tried an insulin pump — a catheter implanted under the skin and attached to a pump about the size of a cell phone that is outside the body — but it left Patton feeling "tied to the machine." Why not have a temporary port to the body into which an insulin needle can be inserted, thus eliminating the need for the machine and multiple needle sticks, she wondered.