UltraSmarter?

I have stated now that I am starting the pump soon. It should arrive next Wednesday, and then on May 3 I will do a saline start. (Yay!) It has been a long process of deciding if the benefits I would receive from using a pump would outweigh the costs, but I did come to the conclusion that they would.

However, I have been wondering if some of the pump features might not be applied to MDI and integrated into blood glucose meters: specifically, “Bolus Wizards” and “Bolus on Board Calculations”.

Currently I use a One Touch UltraSmart, which stores all my blood glucose values and has the option to store insulin doses, exercise, and carb intake. Honestly, I am bad about the carb and exercise tracking, but I use the insulin log religiously. Why couldn’t my BG meter use the same algorithm that a pump uses to tell me how much of my last bolus is left to prevent me from stacking doses? (I have a tendency to treat a little aggressively.) It does require that you be good about inputting the insulin values. Also I use two meters: one for home, and one for work, so obviously my home meter wouldn’t know about the insulin dose I took at 3 p.m. because my post lunch number was too high. Still, it is just math, right? It would be nice to have the option.

The other feature would be a Bolus Wizard. Almost everyone who uses insulin has a Carb to Insulin ratio and a Correction Factor. These days you can program your pump your carb ratio, a target blood sugar (or range), and a correction factor and when you input your current BG and carbs you are about to eat it will calculate how many units of insulin you take to do your bolus. When I was sitting in my clinic’s mandatory pump education class two weeks ago the mention of this feature met with whoops and joyous sighs (I kid you not). One woman took out a something that she said went everywhere with her. It was just a piece of scrap paper that she used to calculate out her mealtime doses. “I suck at math,” she admitted. Why can’t there be a simple calculator in my blood glucose monitor to do that calculation for me, instead of having to do it in my head? I am betting that I will be better about keeping track of my own carb intake when I can put it into a bolus wizard to let it do the calculations for me.
Maybe there wouldn’t be much of a market. It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult; it just requires a few simple equations that are already well used in insulin pumps. Honestly I think we people with diabetes deserve a break wherever we can get it. In the words of Jack Handy, “How ‘bout it Science?”