Rick - medical alert bracelet

[Guest guest]

Hi Rick -

You asked if anyone wears a medical alert bracelet because of all

the drugs we're on - I do.

I'm on a couple of different anti-seizure meds for neuropathic pain

that it would be dangerous for me to miss dosages of; plus I'm on

the narocotics. If I'm out cold and they do a tox-screen, I don't

want them thinking I'm a addict! Plus, I want them giving me an

appropriate level of pain control over and above the dosages I'm

used to. In addition, I have asthma as well as my spinal cord

injury, so there are several issues that emergency personnel would

need to know about if I were in a car accident or something.

The other benefit of a medical alert bracelet, that anyone can wear

one for (you don't even have to have a medical condition to wear

one!) is that the company will immediately contact your next of kin

for you if you are in an accident, once the medical personnel

contact the medical alert company. And, they also will let the

emergency room doctors know who your doctors are that you want

involved in your care, like your pain management doctor, or your

neurosurgeon, or who ever you choose to list.

Of course, this only applies if you have the kind of bracelet that

is managed by a monitored company, where the emergency personnel

call the phone number on the bracelet for more information. You

could certainly just have a bracelet with your medical information

engraved on it that the ambulance people just read without having to

call. But given that I don't really want my prescription

information out there where anybody could read it, I want to protect

my safety and privacy by using the monitored service. Plus, I get

the additional notification benefit, and my health issues are far

too numerous to list on the back of a bracelet anyway!

Hope that gives you some information in making your decision. I'm

not affiliated with the medic alert company. But I recently made

this decision myself, so it's top of mind for me....

Cheryl in AZ