Medical Tattoos

Hi all J Tonight’s thoughts are being brought to you first because of my favorite time waster/avoidance of things I should be doing, Facebook. So see, every now and then procrastination and goofing off can pay off because I had no clue what I was going to do my linked post on for this week. Thanks to my friend Jennifer for posting the original article that sparked my interest and led me to do a bit of research to see what it was about.

So what is all the excitement about? It’s about using tattoos instead of medical alert jewelry. Being a nurse and never having heard of doing this I was intrigued.  Sure I know about medical alert bracelets and other jewelry, but hadn’t ever thought about using a tattoo for that purpose. It’s a pretty cool concept now that I looked into it. Instead of the typical bracelet for example that while useful for alerting medical personnel to potentially life threatening issues and information has major limitations; such as they break, some people are allergic to the metal the jewelry is made of, there are people who are not allowed to wear jewelry to their workplace because of dangers of injury from the jewelry and there are those people who just forget to or refuse to wear their medical alert bracelets for a variety of reasons. If you’re okay with body art this could be a great option for you. Of course there are some downsides, paramedics aren’t currently trained to look for them, there’s no real regulation or consistency to location, appearance or information contained, but these are potentially easily overcome obstacles.

I found this website that is full of Diabetes Advocacy Tattoos, some of which are gorgeous and do show some consistency in information and location. I have noticed many of the alert style ones are on the forearm, predominantly the left, which works for me as that’s where I’d wear a bracelet and where I’ve personally seen many alert bracelets.

You also need to realize that if you have a medical condition, for example diabetes as many of the articles use that you need to take some precautions when deciding a medical tattoo is right for you. The guidelines lined out in Tattoos as Medical Warning include but are not limited to: use a reputable tattoo artist, do not get a tattoo in an area of poor circulation such as your feet and make sure your blood sugar is controlled during the procedure. These recommendations are fully endorsed in that article by Yimmy Householder who is the manager of NeedleMasters Tattoo Studio in Toledo, Ohio and a tattooed diabetic himself.

Another emerging and somewhat controversial use of medical tattoos is explained in this article I found that features Dr. Ed Friedlander, a Kansas City pathologist who has “No CPR” tattooed on the center of his chest. I personally applaud his commitment to his personal feelings and have considered getting a similar tattoo when I reach that point in my life. As a nurse I see so many conflicted families that aren’t 100% sure what their family member wants (even with well documented living wills) so I’m hoping this will help my family out, or at least remind them that they aren’t following my wishes should they choose a different path. The article does mention that currently medical tattoos don’t carry much legal weight, but you never know what will change in time, right?

I hope this gave you all a few things to think about as it did me, happy researching & commenting!