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Have you read a diabetes-related book that really had an impact on you? If so, share your recommendations in the comments!
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Pumping Insulin
Bright Spots and Landmines is superb. A good reminder for a veteran like me who is living well after 59 years of diabetes. Thanks Adam Brown.
Diabetes Solution by Dr Bernstein
Think Like a Pancreas
Diabetes Burnout & Type 1 and pregnancy
The Diabetes Solution by Dr. Bernstein. I only wish I had found it decades earlier than I did.
Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution, by Richard K. Bernstein. Also, Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner.
Diabetes Burnout: What to Do When You Can’t Take it Anymore. It’s particularly interesting because they give you a quiz at the beginning, which then guides you on how to read the rest of the book
I answered “no” but I had liked to read the articles at the end of Diabetes Forecast magazine written by individuals who had interesting diabetes-related stories to tell. Most were very inspiring although some were sad, but all meaningful to someone who shared their common illness.
The Human Side of Diabetes: Beyond Doctors, Diets , and Drugs
Bright Spots and Landmines, Sugar Surfing, Think Like a Pancreas
Pumping Insulin. This is a pumper’s bible!
Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Sheiner helped me get more actively engaged in managing my diabetes instead of sitting back and expecting my endo to do it for me.
Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars: A Complete Guide To Achieving Normal Blood Sugars,
Diabetes Solution by Richard Bernstein. As a physician myself, there is no other way I would manage by DM1.
Not Dead Yet by Phil Southerland!
John Walsh’s Pumping Insulin.
Not a book but, the Juicebox podcast has really impacted me for the better with my management. Scott Benner has interviewed many of the authors of the books that have been commented on for this question!
Mastering Diabetes. The two T1 authors helped me lower my insulin usage by eating more carbs, less protein/fat.
Diabetes Burnout
Shot: Staying Alive with Diabetes by Amy Ryan Beating The Odds: 64 Years of Diabetes Health by Richard Vaughan (who, I believe, posts here) Anything by Dr. Bernstein
Cheating Destiny, by James Hirsch, and The Discovery of Insulin, by Michael Bliss. It’s hard to explain why they affected me, but I think both broadened my perspective on the history and impact of T1D, which had only been something I thought about on a personal level. Neither are particularly uplifting, so be warned.
I have read “Think like a Pancreas”. Loved it. Very enlightening. I felt the author wrote the book from my thoughts.
Dr Bernstein Diabetes Solution.
Think Like a Pancreas
Dr. Bernstein Diabetes Solution
The Diabetes Solution By Dr. Richard Bernstein.
There are two fiction books written by K.J. Howe which have a main character who has Type 1 Diabetes. They are espionage adventure stories, intriguing and well written. Thea Paris is the main character and the books are Skyjack and The Freedom Broker. Managing diabetes is always in the background but not directly pushed to the front of the story line. There are not many novels that have characters with a chronic illness.
The Diabetic Athlete by Sheri Colberg and Think Like A Pancreas.
Diabetes solution by dr Richard Bernstein.
Bright Spots and Landmines by Adam Brown. Real life, “this is what I do that works” and “this is what I do that doesn’t work as well” written by an active and engaged person with TI. It was one of the first books that I read.
“Not Dead Yet” by Team Type 1/Team Novo Nordisk Co-Founder Phil Southerland “Diabetes Solution” by The Bern
Think Like a Pancreas.
Think Like a Pancreas!
Bernstein Diabetes Solution
“Think Like a Pancreas”, of course. But the first book I read, which came in a very helpful welcome-to-type-1-diabetes kit from JDRF, was Mary Tyler Moore’s autobiography, “Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes” (2009). It was extremely helpful to me as a T1D newly diagnosed at age 72.
Sugar Surfing
I have subscribed to Diabetes Forecast for years published by the ADA. Lots of interesting reading, recipes, life stories, advertisements, new treatment options, and encouragement from the editor.
Breakthrough! Tells the story of the discovery of insulin. All should read! https://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Elizabeth-Discovery-Insulin-Medical/dp/0312611749/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=breakthrough+diabetes+book&qid=1613162345&sr=8-3
1981, Bernstein Diabetes Solution. Started MDI, despite what my Endo said.
Dr Bernstein’s – Diabetes Solution
Sugar Surfing and Think Like a Pancreas
Dr. Polonski’s book “Diabetes Burnout” is wonderful. Easy to read with lots of workable suggestions of how to overcome roadblocks to taking better care of yourself. Lots of examples from his years of helping people accept and live their disease. Also, how to handle other well-meaning people in your life.
My first read was the ADA’s Complete Guide to Diabetes, then Think Like a Pancreas, and continually the national online library of medicine, PubMed. ADA helped me understand what was occurring quickly after diagnosis. PubMed and ClinicalTrials both show me the progress that is being made.
I have read most of the books mentioned by others responding to this post, plus many more. Top of the list are books and chapters written by others living with T1D and how they manage and master life with it. However if I had to pick one book that really made an impact on my knowledge and understanding about diabetes it was an easy to read patient teaching manual published by Eli Lilly with a title something like “Insulin: What It Is and How it Works in Your Body”. It was given to me by a very kind and compassionate bedside RN in 1982 when I was hospitalized for a severe bout of near death DKA after a miscarriage. Reading that book changed my life and set me on a path of healing because for the first time in almost 20 years of living with diabetes I finally really understood that insulin is an essential hormone necessary for the life process in the body – that it isn’t a punishment or a drug.
As some one else noted, Cheating Destiny, by James Hirsch, and The Discovery of Insulin, by Michael Bliss were both excellent on the tribulations w modern T1D (first) and the pre-insulin history second. I have a signed copy of Michael Bliss book! There are passages in there that I cannot read without getting choked up: 1) a description of a scene when Dr Allen (who worked out starvation treatment for T1D prior to the discovery of insulin) coming back to his starvation center with the first doses of insulin; 2) Dr Elliot Joslin describing the first patients treated with insulin reminding him of a biblical passage from Ezekiel, Valley of the dry bones. I also loved Breakthrough, the Story of Elizabeth Hayes, as someone else mentioned.
I read Think Like a Pancreas shortly after I was diagnosed and it is the only book about diabetes that I have read, and I found it extremely helpful. It is what I learned the most from about how to manage type 1 after I was diagnosed as I didn’t learn much of anything from medical professionals. I credit what I learned from the book for me being able to live and eat normally and still keep my A1c in the non-diabetic range.
Many! Most of them very good. Best (IMO): Bright Spots & Landmines (Adam Brown) A Woman’s Guide to Diabetes (Brandy Barnes, Natalie Strand) Anything by Taking Control of Your Diabetes (Edelman)
Way back in the 1980’s I read one of Dr. Bernstein’s early books from that era. It was the first book I read, that discussed the real life of someone living day-to-day with T1 diabetes, and also introduced me to MDD basal+bolus insulin treatment (a big improvement over my previous twice-a-day R+N regimen that was really wacky and unbalanced in comparison).