10 has a foot ring 14 that contacts the skin an electrically conducting ring 15 is used as a counterelectrode in certain embodiments a pair of ecg electrodes contacting skin 18 served as the counterelectrode a glucose sensing strip 16 is inserted into the foot ring 14 and the other end of the strip is inserted into a conventional glucose meter 17 the following non limiting examples serve to illustrate certain embodiments of the invention but are not to be construed as limiting variations and additional or alternative embodiments will be readily apparent to the skilled artisan on the basis of the disclosure provided herein a 0 014 u2033 diameter cutter with a short flute 0 015 u2033 long was mounted in a pathformer device 1 of fig3 the device uses skin impedance as a trigger to limit the depth of penetration into the skin the device was used in the u2018 dither u2019 mode in this experiment a pair of norotrode 20 electrodes stuck on the skin away from the site of drilling was used as counterelectrodes the device was set to 15 k u03c9 trigger resistance after the 10 th dither clear interstitial fluid emerged from the skin at the 30 th dither there was a slight pricking sensation at which point a large bolus of interstitial fluid appeared fig4 subsequently the cutter started moving slowly into the bolus and drawing the fluid out when the device was turned off and lifted off the skin blood appeared from the site mixing with the.