Qualifying the _ wildcard in a filter

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Our contact quick search fails due to the number of rows examined when we search for an email address that has a _ (underscore) in the 2nd position. Turns out MySQL sees that as a wildcard and we need to qualify it with a \

Example: [email protected] would need to be a\[email protected]

We can't ask our agents to remember that whenever they come across one of these emails. So, is there a way to massage the report filter prior to searching, maybe using variables or complex expressions?

I'm picturing something like this, but in a filter.