Think Like a Pancreas: A Practical Guide to Managing Diabetes with Insulin--Completely Revised and Updated Paperback – 24 Jan. 2012

This book should be required reading for all diabetics, particularly those who are insulin dependent. I have been diabetic for 24 years and feel that if I had had this information from the start I may well have been able to avoid some of the complications I am experiencing now. Although the author is American, it is not in any way difficult to follow for the European reader and the explanations of how insulin works are easy to understand. The various techniques for calculating insulin doses and getting the basal rate correct are perfectly simple and more importantly work. Since reading this book, my control has improved a lot; my last HBA1C was 6.2 whereas previously I had been struggling to get below 8.0. Education for diabetics in the UK is a bit hit and miss I think and focuses more on telling you what to do rather than on explaining why. I have often been in a situation where I have felt that I know as much if not more about diabetes than the medical professionals who are supposed to be guiding me which is an uncomfortable position to be in, particularly if you are struggling a bit. With this book I have felt a lot more confident about my illness and a lot more in control. I would recommend it to diabetics and caregivers and the medical profession alike.

After being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, I soon realised I had to play a very active role in managing my blood sugar level . If my blood sugar level were to drop too low, even temporarily, I might behave erratically or pass out. If my blood sugar level were to be persistently high, I could face serious health problems such as blindness, heart attack or kidney failure. In order to succeed in controlling my blood sugar level I had to balance my insulin doses against factors such as food and exercise, and to do that I needed appropriate knowledge.For a time, trying to get the required depth of knowledge was frustrating. There was not enough information in the free leaflets, the tabloid-style websites or the general-purpose books on diabetes aimed primarily at Type 2 diabetics. Then thankfully I found this book.The author of this book has medical training and has had Type 1 diabetes for many years, and so he knows what he is talking about from both the professional viewpoint and the patient viewpoint. He has attempted to write a very readable book about a very serious subject, and generally he has succeeded. There are just a few places where the text seems a bit too flippant, and in contrast Chapter 7 is quite mathematical, but that chapter can be skipped and returned to at a later date.This book is American, but in most places it gives the normal British units for blood sugar concentration in brackets after the normal American units. There are just a few places where this American book may not be fully appropriate for British readers, such as references to foods or sweets that are not generally available in Britain, and analogies to baseball.I believe that this book has given me all the knowledge I need to manage my Type 1 Diabetes, and I am no longer looking for other sources of information.

This book explains in clear English how to manage Type 1 Diabetes. The basic physiology of diabetics is used to explain the methods used to treat it. It explains some of the hows and whys and some of the potential pitfalls of insulin therapy. A must read for anyone newly diagnosed.

Having dealt with the information overload that comes with a Type 1 diagnosis I initially thought I didn't want any more reading but this book was recommended to me by almost every diabetic I met. Obviously this is from an American viewpoint and some of the details are less relevant to us Brits but the information is, in general, excellent. I asked every nurse/doctor I saw when I was diagnosed if they were diabetic and none of them were so no-one was able to speak from experience. Gary Scheiner does speak from experience and gives a lot of practical advice on how to deal with diabetes...for life. Diabetes is different for everyone but I think the information in this book can help each of us deal with our diabetes to the best of our ability.Only takes about 90 minutes to read through initially - then you need to read each chapter and learn how to apply the knowledge provided to your own circumstances. In the six months since diagnosis this is the book I have reached for before any other information when I have had a question or wanted to look up a detail or two. Well worth the money.

Extremely informative book for insuline dependent diabetics. It is written by someone who has come accross your particular insluine connundrum of the moment and speaks informatively and practically about how to solve it . The book really helps develope an understanding of what is going on, what to do, and develop and realistic goals that remove some of the frustration from the management of this tricky illness. Don't expect the book to be understandable by everyone, or to be extremely short-and-simple. Diabetes is often a complicated illness to manage well, so even though this book it is written extremely well and explains things really well, the it is still dealing with a complicated subject, so inevitablly it is a slightly compicated book. The author also has a warm sense of humour, which while perhaps not to everyone's taste, does not detract from the benefits of this hugely informative and practical book.

This book has refocused me and taught me more about Type one Diabetes than anything else I've come across.

What puts me off this publication is that the author finishes every early paragraph with 'if you get your diabetes in order, everything else will fall into place'. It's not really what one wants to be reading.Obviously, I bought the book as I thought I might learn something. I have had Type 1 diabetes for nearly 50 years so I'm not a newbie,however I am new to the pump I now wear, which isn't always so great. I'm not sure the book will teach me anything - we'll see.