With our holiday fast approaching, I’ve been considering whether M needs some form of medical ID to carry on him.  The concept isn’t a new one to me as I’ve had a Medic Alert bracelet for years for my T1D and regularly make sure the information held on file for me is up-to-date.  I’ve not previously felt it necessary to have such a band for M, but with his diagnosis of EGID and an increasing number of medicines and allergies to consider, I finally bit the bullet and decided to investigate what was on the market.  Part of the impetus to my search was seeing one of M’s school friends sporting one at our recent local music festival for his T1D and realising that this would be hugely important for those occasions when M is out and about without me or Mike on hand to explain.

Whilst my Medic Alert bracelet works well for me, the biggest problem would inevitably be the amount of information needed for M and I felt that it just wouldn’t accommodate it all.  I needed something that would appeal enough to M for him to be willing to wear it all the time as well as having enough room for me to note his name, DOB, emergency contacts, EGID, 12 medicines and 8 food allergies.  No small feat, but – and I doubt this will come as much of a surprise – there is something out there that does all this with ease.

The wonderful ID Band company has a range I couldn’t fail to be impressed by.  From bracelets to necklaces, sports bands to medical bags and the all important kids range, plus a whole host of “spares”, some of which you wouldn’t have even thought of until the moment you need them, there is pretty much everything you could conceivably want.  As well as the more traditional metal panels that you can get engraved with the exact wording you want, they also offer the product I was looking for – a wristband containing a card ID that you can personalise as necessary and the whole band is completely waterproof.  Cautious as ever, I browsed the site to check there was nothing better available, but kept coming back to this one band in particular.  The card ID was big enough to take all of M’s details, I could buy extra cards for when things change and the sizing was ideal for M’s small wrists.  Even better I could get it in green camo, just the thing to appeal to my small boy.

I placed the order on a Thursday afternoon, with my fingers crossed that it would arrive in time for our holiday and to my astonishment, the parcel dropped through our door the very next day.  I filled the information out and presented it to M, hoping that he would be keen to give it a whirl and not reject it out of sight.  I needn’t have worried – M was desperate to try it on straight away and has been more than happy to wear to his holiday club this week.  Once again, a massive double thumbs up from both children (well G wanted one too to state her allergies) and a hearty recommendation from this very satisfied Mum.