Medical Alert Bracelets

Have any of you chosen to wear medical alert bracelets?  What information did you include?  Did you find a good and reasonably priced source?

Thanks!

Carrie

Carrie,

I went through a couple of those and finally gave up.  The first 2 got too small for me, and I broke the 3rd one (not because it was poorly made, but because I got it caught on something and broke it when I yanked too hard on it).  Anyway, I got mine from laurenshope.com, which has a wide assortment of plain and fashion medic alert bracelets & related jewelry. 

Mine were engraved with:

MY NAME
GASTRIC BAND W/ PORT
NO BLIND NG TUBE
NO NSAIDS NO SULFA
MY SURGEON'S NAME (I wanted to include his phone #, but there wasn't room)

Keep in mind that no matter what you put on your medic alert jewelry, emergency medical people are going to do whatever they have to in order to save your life, including putting in a blind NG (naso-gastric) tube.  No EMT I talked to could think of why a patient would be given NSAIDs in an emergency.  The most useful information for them on my bracelet would be my allergy to sulfa.
EMT's also said that a plain bracelet would be noticed more than a fashion type bracelet.  My bracelets were the fashion type and I was asked about them by 5 different medical professionals during the 23 months I wore them.

Jean

Jean

I don't wear one. I carry the card I got from Realize about the surgery in my wallet. As Jean says, EMT's etc will do what they have to when they need to save your life first anyway.

This is fairly controversial and appears quite often as a Q!

I asked my own doc and talked about it to several paramedics I happen to know,as  well as other medical people.

The general consensus was that the gastric band does not in itself require us to wear any medical alert jewellery.

If we are so severely injured that we are unable to tell the medics we are banded, then putting in a ng tube will be to save our lives and a damaged stoma is an irrelevance. In any case, the end of the tubing is very small and is rigid and so should pass through the stoma; might just take a few more attempts and might cause tissue damage - but under those cir****tances - who cares?

And there is nothing else! Some docs say no NSAIDS (mine doesn't) but these are not goign to be used if you are unconscious anyway!

I always carry my small card which gives a small picture of the band and a very brief description in several langauges, but that is because I travel a lot and am often in countries whose languages i do not speak. I might need to explain the band to someone and sign language might not get me there!

Kate

I have wear a medical alert bracelet. But then again I have worn one for years. I have not added lapband on it but the bacelet also say there is more info in my wallet which has that and many more conditions on it.

I have worn one since banding.  I know the arguments against them - I understand all of that.  For me wearing one means that I am offering all the information I can about myself.  Having an NG placed in an life and death situation is not my concern.  Of course, I want them to do what they need to do, but if I am not able to talk, I want them to know I have a Lap Band.

Mine says my name on the front and inside it says, "Gastric Lap Band AP 14 ml Band" - I am also an organ donor and I have a Malignant Hyperthermia.

My Medical Alert Bracelet looks like a medical alert bracelet.  There is really no way anyone could confuse it with jewerly.

 I haven't yet but I would like to get one. I'm in the medical field and I see all possible errors from not informing emergency personal regarding a device.  I'm also allergic to sulfa and penicillin so I think I would be a good candidate to wear one. 

I don't have one yet.  I discussed it with my doctor & he's on the fence.  He said it can't hurt to have more info avail for EMT's or ER.

I don't have a bracelet, mostly for the reasons Jean and Kate list.  However, I have a place in my cell phone where, at the top of the contacts list, there is space for emergency info.  I've go*****ped in there in addition to being on a card in my wallet.