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Will a tattoo alert doctors to allergies?

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Monday Aug 22 2011

I am allergic to a couple of drugs, including penicillin, and I wear contact lenses.

Recently, a friend of mine was taken to hospital unconscious after an accident.

They didn’t spot that he also wore contact lenses so when he eventually came round he had dreadful sore eyes on top of all his other problems.

This has left me very worried in case I were to find myself in a similar position — especially if I couldn’t tell them about the drug allergies.

I was thinking of getting a tattoo to tell the doctors, but my friend says she thinks there is something you can buy that doctors know to look out for.

Do you know what this is and where I can get hold of it? TH

FIONA SAYS: SPECIALIST JEWELLERY IS BETTER OPTION

A tattoo is a very permanent way of making sure you alert doctors to a problem.

However, there is indeed a talisman that could be a better option (or you might, for example, give up wearing contact lenses).

There are some that are quite like jewellery, which can be obtained from good jewellery shops.

They are marked with a medical symbol and usually have a piece of paper inside on which you can write the things you want doctors to be aware of.

However, I too am allergic to certain drugs and I prefer to wear a bracelet from the MedicAlert Foundation.

This costs £25 a year plus the cost of the talisman and all my medical information is held on file for emergencies.

The bracelet I wear is engraved with basic information plus an emergency telephone number.

You can go online to medicalert.org.uk to register and choose your talisman.

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