Medic bracelets

Andrew now has two kinds of bracelets which list his allergies.

The first one is the usual medicalert steel bracelet. The real Medicalert bracelets are $70 and I didn't want to spend that kind of money until I figured out if he would actually wear the thing on his wrist.



So I found a cheaper alternative online, at the Diabetic Drugstore: kids' medicalert bracelets for $11.98 US. They were super-fast, with delivery in less than a week from Virginia to British Columbia. Unfortunately, the bracelet they sent was the adult size (pictured on the top right, above). They were super-friendly on the phone when I spoke to them (gotta love that Southern accent!) and sent me a kids' bracelet for free (bottom).

It turns out that Andrew will wear it for a few hours, then wants it taken off his wrist. So we'll keep working on that.

The other bracelet also has a customer service issue. It's the Buzzmeband, from Australia. You can specify the colours and type -- I went with yellow and orange because I figured it was bright and noticeable. It's a perfect fit on Andrew's skinny 3-year-old wrist. Unfortunately, they didn't fill-in the text as I'd ordered (I wanted black lettering). But they actually emailed me before they mailed it to me. The manufacturer had made that mistake, so they were going to mail me the incorrect bracelets, just to tide me over, and refund my payment, and re-do and re-send the order with the text filled in. So I gotta give major kudos for customer service and satisfaction to these folks.

These Buzzmeband bracelets aren't a traditional medicalert bracelet, which is a concern in an actual emergency. But I think that they're pretty cool-looking, and Andrew might actually be more willing to wear this softer bracelet. So I'd rather have him wear something which lists his allergies, than nothing at all. If nothing else, it's a reminder to his preschool teachers and any parents who might be around that he has allergies.

I actually like the Buzzmebands as a fun bracelet. If I could think of text I'd want to write on my own wrist, I'd be tempted to get some for myself! They're not expensive -- $15-$25 for 6 bracelets (depending on what colours you want) plus a couple of bucks for postage. I think I'd want some kind of purple/red/blue marbleized combo.