Customer Reviews

Diabetes 101, Third Edition: A Pure and Simple Guide for People Who Use Insulin

5 star:		(4)
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3 star:		(1)
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I work at Chronimed. Actually for Home Service Medical which is under the umbrella of Chronimed. We are a mail-order diabetic supply company and full service pharmacy. I started in November of 1997 and knew basically nothing about diabetes. This book helped me grasp what my patients are going through and helped me understand the disease and different types of diabetes. This is an excellent book for beginners who want to know about the disease in terms they will understand. This book is written perfectly for someone who doesn't know all the medical terms for the symptoms or treatments. It's a wonderful book!

This new 3rd revised edition offers things such as dynamic insulin dosing, insights into stopping or slowing the effects of diabetes, tips on using the new fast acting insuling Humalog, How foods impact blood sugar, suggestions on how to minimize sick days, how to get insurance reimbursement, and much more. A slim, easy guide and worth it's price.

I have had the privilege of being one of Dr. Dolinar's patients in Phoenix, while I lived there. I say privilege because he's definitely one physician that, unlike many others, takes the time during each visit, to talk with you and calm you down about any doubts or fears you might have. With this book, you can almost have the same opportunity. He put together a very comprehensive and solid text with the help of Betty Page Brackenridge, and this one differs from most of the other diabetes books you will run into in one main respect: it doesn't "cover the topic" in a theoretical, distant manner. It goes all the way through the basics and the more sophisticated topics dealing with insulin-dependence by means of a story, the story of Mike (a longtime diabetic who uses insuline) and his conversations and interactions with his doctor and diabetes educator. It makes it very easy for you as a diabetic to relate to the story, simply because you have been there, and "done that" before.

As for the topics covered, the book deals with Dynamic Insulin Dosing (one very important tool once you are on fast-acting insulin), and a detailed insight about the condition of diabetes borrowing from the metaphor of a fireplace in a cabin, and comparing its many elements to those of a human body: cabin=body cell, logs=blood sugar, keeping a steady flow of air=insulin, etc. Also there's extensive discussing about monitoring (things that you will want to learn about it) and hypoglycemia, and how to prevent it, identify it and treat it.

The part that I found most useful is where the book deals with "living" with diabetes: what do you do on sick days; how to manage grocery shopping and eating outside; what to do and not to do when travelling with diabetes; how to cope with/handle stress; what to expect with regards to insurance claims and much more. In short, the daily in-and-outs of a diabetic, all stuff that you will easily relate with and will have a great time reading and learning from it. As the ending of the book says, it's about "whether we have diabetes or not, we only have so much tread on our tires. And it's a matter of trying to get the most mileage possible out of the tread that we've got... Go out and live well!"

I was a disappointed by this promising little book after ordering based upon it's title, which seems to speak directly to users of insulin AND the overwhelming positive reviews. My issue with the book is that it is EXTREMELY basic, even remedial in the way it explains everything through cheesy imaginary dialogues between a ficticous diabetic patient and his doctors, etc. If you have just been diagnosed diabetic or simply know nothing about diabetes this may be a good starter book for you. If you are however a long time diabetic who just recently began using insulin (like myself) this book will likely seem condescending and uninformative. For me the book was a waste of money. Thankfully I only paid one cent +S/H....$4.00. I think the key here is to describe this book as a BEGINNERS book. As such it's ok, otherwise I still highly recommend "Think Like a Pancreas" by Gary Scheiner as the ultimate guide for diabetics new to insulin.

This book laid out in the first few pages how to immediately get a handle on the daily mechanics of dealing with Type 1 Diabetes. We could tell the difference because in 1 1/2 years and several alleged "specialists" treating my condition I was still underweight and fatigued all the time. Within one week of following the suggestions in the first 20 pages of this book I had gained 10 lbs and had much more energy. The content is told in story form and is user-friendly by following Diabetes management questions in a logical progression with very simple language. I couldn't recommend this book any more highly. It's been a turnaround event in my life. CJ 08/25/2009