"This reliable, empathetic, up-to-date handbook should be a life-enhancing lifesaver for all type-2 diabetics"

---

Product Description

Diagnosed with type-2 diabetes in 1996, Gretchen Becker educated herself on every aspect of this chronic condition - by reading medical books, talking with doctors, listening to her own body and using the Internet to communicate daily with other people with diabetes. Now, as a patient-expert, she guides all those newly diagnosed through everything they need to learn and do in the crucial first year after diagnosis. Hers is a step-by-step approach, first a day at a time - each day of the first week - then a week at a time - each week of the first month - and then a month at a time - each month for the 11 months of year one. This guide, a full and in-depth look at all aspects of the condition that untangles and clarifies, simplifies but never patronizes, offers a wider approach than any so far adhered to by doctors. It answers all the myriad questions that assail the newly diagnosed: how best to adjust your social life to cope with daily maintenance? How to make sense of the complicated terminology about measurement of blood-glucose levels? How to build self-knowledge and confidence? How, crucially, best to adjust to life with diabetes. This reliable, empathetic, up-to-date handbook should be a life-enhancing lifesaver for all type-2 diabetics.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3616 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Gretchen Becker is a writer and editor specialising in medical books, and a type-2 diabetic, who lives in Vermont, USA. Gretchen Becker is a writer and editor specialising in medical books, and a type-2 diabetic, who lives in Vermont, USA.

---

Customer Reviews

If you can only buy 1 book on Type 2 DM - make it this one
Gretchen Becker writes from experience and also considerable knowledge in a very clear way. The chapters are short, clear and concise. They can be read in sequence or stand alone.

After diagnosis, many of us, find it hard to take on board what we are told at the clinic as often there is shock and denial present after what feels like intimations of our own mortality.

This book can help you review and learn at your own pace in your own home as and when you are ready. The format is set out to take you step by step through the first year after your diagnosis. It's a bit like someone walking alongside you and is very helpful and non-threatening.

Gretchen Becker also tackles the thorny issue of diet or way of eating and gives a comprehensive review of the various options.

There are good references, glossary and for this version she asked me to include information on resources available to us Type 2 Dmers (people with Type 2 diabetes) here in the UK.

Other than a flat fee for writing the chapter (already received), I have no financial interest in recommending this book.

I first read the US version and learned a lot despite 23 years of living with this darn disease. 26 years on after diagnosis and I am still learning. I would highly recommend anyone with Type 2 diabetes, (or their family) or even medics or DSN's (Diabetes Specialist Nurses) to read and have this as a reference and even better a loan copy for newly diagnosed people with Type 2 diabetes.

If you want to learn about your newly diagnosed disease and how best to manage it so you live with it and not be managed by it, then buy a copy, read, take on board the info in the book, and you'll be empowered to live a full and healthy life even with Type 2 diabetes.

The View of a new diabetic
This book is really amazing clear concise and it leads you gently from page to page and chapter to chapter. You are lead from a simple level of information at the beginning and pointed to other areas of the book for more indepth information.
You can take whatever level of information is suitable for you at any one time then come back for deeper understanding of what is happening to you and your body when your ready for it.
This is a book I will consult again and again during this my first year as a diabetic - Thank you Gretchen.

If you can only buy 1 book on Type 2 Diabetes - THIS IS IT!
As a long standing DMer (Type 2 going on weird) who has done lots of research and reading on this disease in both clinical and popular health books and the web, I am very impressed with this book.

Gretchen Becker's Book has brought together so much solid information and has achieved the near impossible, of presenting it in a very readable style.

The book is well laid out so that if still reeling from the shock of the diagnosis, (and who doesn't react like that?), the basics are there right from the start. At your own pace you can add in and read more depth and scientific facts to help you live and manage the disease. This is important as we, the people with diabetes, are the ones who live with it rather than the doctors, nurses and dietitians who help us. We need to be as informed as possible to manage a disease which can have devastating complications if uncontrolled.

Thankfully, Gretchen also leavens this mixture with her dry sense of humour - vital to coping with any chronic disease. She shows us that there is life after diagnosis and it can be fun. As a scientist, sheep farmer and science editor Gretchen knows the disease from the inside as she has type 2.

I would strongly recommend this to any person with DM whether Type 1 or 2, Diabetic Clinic staff, GP, nurse or family member... After 23 years of living with disease, I learned much by reading this book. Thank you, Gretchen.

I will certainly be recommending it to my local Diabetes Clinic and GP practice.

The only figure you need to know is how to translate the mg/dl measures (used for blood glucose readings in the USA) to mmol/l (used for blood glucose readings in the UK). To do this divide the mg/dl number by 18 (well 18.02 if you want to be pedantic!) and in reverse multiply mmol/l number by 18 to get mg/dl.

Go buy it and get a better handle on your DM!