Scarcely larger than a grain of rice, and monitored through a device that looks remarkably similar to a wristwatch, the Glucowizard system of keeping tabs on blood sugar levels promises diabetics relief from the sore, bruised and overly sensitive fingertips that develop as a result of checking blood glucose levels three or more times daily.

Currently, the only way for diabetics to know if they are exceeding the 126 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter) levels of blood glucose that denotes the safe upper limit is to prick a finger and test the drop of blood on a strip inserted into a glucose meter.

This may sound simple and painless to the inexperienced, but in fact fingertips are notoriously sensitive, and we humans are limited to eight of them. Thumbs are usable in a pinch, no pun intended, but commonly too calloused to get a good drop of blood, and some medical professionals question their use in getting appropriate testing samples (not sure why, since it’s all the same blood).

This means, when testing more than four times a day, fingertips are routinely jabbed at least every other day, and this can lead to hypersensitivity, reddening, even bruising, and the sort of discomfort that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to work a keyboard, button a shirt, or hold a pen without wincing.

Biorasis, knowing this, has come to the rescue with a device they call the Glucowizard, a tiny monitor that uses solar power via a wrist device to track the reading from a rice-sized sensor implanted beneath the skin using an 18-inch hypodermic needle.

That part sounds gruesome, but it only has to be done once to allow the wristwatch-like component to track glucose readings from the implant, which assesses blood sugar based on a glucose-triggered enzyme in blood. The watch also alerts type 1 diabetics when it’s time to inject insulin, and provides chronological tracking that can help type 2 diabetics, and their doctors, determine is more medication is needed.

For the 24 million Americans, or 8 percent of the population, currently afflicted with diabetes (most of them with type 2), the solar-powered Glucowizard is a step up from almost medieval torture tactics.

Unfortunately, it’s still in testing, and won’t reach the commercial marketplace until about 2017. By that time, Biorasis might also have monitors that keep track of such deadly afflictions as cancer, heart problems, liver problems, kidney failure, stroke and epilepsy.