I love that you just brought this up, because I've been online looking for a bracelet. What company did you use since you like yours so well? Depending on how your bracelet is made, one idea that might work for you is to just buy a new name/info plate for it and attach the bracelet you have. That way you're just changing out the part that's worn and not the entire bracelet. I'm actually considering just buying that part myself and since I make jewelry I can just do whatever I want with the rest of the bracelet. Because so far I haven't seen anything I'm super excited about......

How is the emblem on yours, was it engraved or raised? Because I don't know if this is crazy or not, but could an engraver manage to just refresh that part of it, so it's more defined again? I would think that would still be less costly for you than buying a whole new bracelet.

Mine is actually just a plain gold-plated one from http://www.identifyyourself.com/. No beading or anything. But it is simple and gold, which means I like it.

The emblem was raised. I'm thinking maybe I need to find a different version that it engraved. Maybe that would hold up better.

What is the average life span of a medical ID bracelet anyway?

On that, I have no idea - I would expect a good, solid chain to hold up longer than just a couple of years. I've been very remiss and never bought one before, but now I know 100% coumadin is permanent, plus other issues too. So I need one now. I actually just want something plain-ish too - first I don't think the beading is very practical and second, I don't want it to look like some pretty thing I put on that could be overlooked as a medical ID. But I could do some cool stuff with chain or I don't know - something else, I might even make interchangeable bracelets for the name plate. The plain plates that I saw were around $30 on its own.

I think the life span probably depends on how much wear and tear it experiences.

This is a timely topic because I'm needing a new bracelet myself.
I have a stainless steel bangle bracelet I bought about 4 years ago maybe. Here's the site I bought it from:
http://www.stickyj.com/mfc1009.html

The bracelet is about a 1/4 of an inch wide, so the red medical alert emblem is stamped on top, and "anticoagulants" is etched on the bottom. The etched text is starting to wear off since this rubs against my desk at work when I'm writing or anything I'm resting my wrist on The red emblem is JUST starting to wear off. I am pretty hard on this piece of jewelery. I sleep with it, shower with it, exercise with it etc, and so I think it has lasted pretty long considering that.

Oh, and my brother the paramedic / fire fighter said that they're trained to really look for that alert emblem so even on a beaded bracelet they'd find it.

John wasn't thrilled about wearing one so I found a 3 pack of silicone bracelets for $8 on eBay. Its a guy thing I think.

I wear the silicone ones when I'm riding my bike but know that I probably should wear one at other times. My problem is that I have a nickel allergy and they mix that stuff into everything. Would love to find a nickel free bracelet.

Sterling silver should be nickel free, and I know you can get med ID bracelets made of that. Copper is too, but I haven't seen any of these made in all copper.

I got a sterling silver medical pendant with a lobster claw that I can put on a chain and wear around my neck (mostly a Tiffany SS choker-type chain) or put on any bracelet of my choosing. I think it would get more beat up if I wore it as a bracelet a lot. I really like it and like how it looks. My pulmonologist recently saw it and asked me to send him info. on who I ordered it from because he liked it so much.

I've had mine for about two years and it just lost the color around the emblem. I also have nickel allergies but I found a titanium bracelet from American Medical ID that has not given me any problems.

hello

i just bought a medical alert bracelet on Ebay, it was very reasonable and nice quality, it only took a few days to arrive and cost around 12.00. hope this helps

love sharon

I'm so thankful for this site for so many reasons--like the support I get from people with the same health issues as me, the good advice on medical issues, the comraderie--and then for things like this: I never even thought to get a medical ID bracelet!!! It's been 3 1/2 months since my PE, and I still don't have one--but I realized I really need one after reading this thread. I am surprised that no medical professional had suggested it to me before this. But leave it to the helpful people at DS for helping again! Thanks for posting about something I think is important, but that I completely overlooked until now. BTW, when I googled "medical ID bracelets", many sites came up. So there seems to be a good selection out there. I think I'm going to go with a site called Laurenshope.com--they have so many to choose from--and they have medical dog tags, too. Just wanted to say thanks for the suggestion.

Im only in my first few weeks so I just have a silicon one. I don't have to take it off to have a bath or shower, it doesn't get in the way when I type or scractch anything. I don't even know I have it on and I am wearing it 24/7. Maybe later I will get sick of it and get a better one. There are so many other silicone ones for fund raising etc it just blends in.

I got mine at Lauren's hope and was really happy with it. I would get complimented on the bracelet and people didn't even realize it was a medical id bracelet because the id tag stayed on the inside of my wrist mostly.

Now that I'm off Warfarin is there any reason to get a new tag that says I have thrombophilia? I don't have a crazy disorder, just Factor II but I didn't know if there was any reason to have an ID bracelet for that.

Hi, how funny I was looking at them on ebay just the other day! Lots of choice and prices vary but overall very low price and an excellent idea.