xylophone

And I will add something to that, because after my very good experience with Dr Charuspong at Bumrungrad, I received a phone call from him this morning asking how things were and we had a little chat about one thing and another – – – now how many times in any country has anyone had that happen before, certainly not me, so once again thanks to @Sheryl for her recommendation. And whilst I was speaking to the good doctor I enquired about the sacral neural modulator, as mentioned by @simple1 and he said that it was primarily for incontinence sufferers, and worked very well for them, whereas for bladder retention the success rate was around 50%. The good thing about this is that they fit it and you get to trial it for about a week to see if it actually does work, and if it doesn't, then the operation doesn't go ahead, but if it does work and you want to proceed, then the procedure here will be around 1 million baht!!! As its basically an OPD operation, my insurance won't cover it, so I'll give it a little while and do some more research with Prof Dr Art here to find out a little more about it and the actual cost here in Phuket. I suppose it comes down to the quality of life I want heading into my 75th year, and whether I want to spend some of the money I have invested in NZ, and I'm just getting my head around that.

I'll go one further than that, saying that this was a pathetic performance based on the money spent. I have never seen such a huge gulf between the fourth placed team (United) and the first two in the PL and United will be lucky if they finish in the top six if they continue to play like this. There were players out there who were not prepared to work for the team, and I can only hope that a few of them have gone come the summer transfer window, Pogba especially, as it's quite obvious he doesn't want to be there, and as I have said many times on this thread, they are short of a good total midfield, let alone a good striker. The Match of the Day pundits have had it right for many weeks when they have analysed the United games, inasmuch as they have more or less mirrored my comments above with regards to drive, desire and work rate, all of them poor. Although we are fourth in the PL, we are lucky to be there given performances like the last one. And how on earth has Rashford gone from a superstar to an also-ran in such a short space of time?? Unbelievable.

A few days ago I flew from Phuket to Suvarnabhumi return on Vietjet and was never asked for anything to do with vaccinations, although I did take my little yellow vaccination but with me!

I've had a Kashiwa two slice toaster for about 10 years now and it has been working fine, and I think it was around 350 baht or thereabouts when bought. I looked on the bottom and I can't find a label as to where it's made, but China would be a good bet, and it takes two decent size slices of toast although when I buy the rustic unsliced bread, I sometimes have to trim very small amounts off the edges, but then again I've never had any problem with it, so can recommend it.

I, like many others here do hope that Patong continues to "wake up", but it's more the stuff ups on behalf of TAT and the government which have impacted most of all, however the old saying (or something like it) "once a party town, always a party town", comes to mind. I say this because despite some doom and gloom around the place and some slack nights in Bangla of recent times, last night was heaving (or pretty much so later on) with the music bars 3/4 to full, and although there were quite a few smaller bars with very few customers in, bars like Kangaroo were absolutely packed – – so a bit of a mixed bag. Suzie Wongs has opened again, and Harem is still going, as well as a couple of other small gogo places which have just opened, however I didn't bother to visit because I am bored with them, and if I was with a small group of lads on a night out, then it might be different because some fun can be had. But for the time being; not interested. I felt sorry for the bar owners in Soi Freedom, because they just weren't many farangs in the place, and it's a far cry from its heyday when it had every bar occupied and a great band at the end, but not so now, and IMO it is a Soi with unfulfilled promise, and I wonder how much the ownership has to do with that, and of course the lack of a band. I got to Bangla at around 7:15 PM and it was deserted, but little by little the punters arrived and as I mentioned earlier later on in the evening it livened up, and at about 11 PM when I was contemplating leaving Red Hot and heading home, there were more Tuk Tuks lining Rat-u-Thid road (each side) than I have seen in many years! Of course they were waiting for customers and there seemed to be a fair number of those. I don't know if it's a sure sign of things picking up, but for the first time in a years I saw Thais in Bangla brandishing the A4 size laminated "Ping Pong Show" placards, not that they have ever been of interest to me, but there were probably about 10 of these guys in all, looking for customers. Meanwhile back in Nanai, new premises seem to be springing up, including a French patisserie or similar, and one thing that hasn't changed is the fact that some of the bars seem to be draw cards for the "wifebeater T-shirt wearing potbellied farangs" and come to think of it, looking around Patong over the last week, I have noticed a plethora of what I would call "low-end tourists"-- -- -so much for the arrival of the wealthy tourists!

I can't remember if you said that you had a cystoscopy previously, but if you haven't, it's very straightforward and takes about 10 to 15 minutes and is not painful, perhaps a little uncomfortable, but they do squirt some Xylocaine gel down the end of the old fella to numb it before the camera goes in – – lucky it's not an Instamatic!!! Again, good luck.

Watched the movie, "Against the Ice" and thought it was good, if a little drawn out at the end. Based on a true story and interesting. Was keen to see this as I had watched the film, "Amundsen" a short while ago, and still can't get over how badly he was treated by the British establishment, praising the fact that Scott almost got there, and demeaning Amundsen and his team because they ate their dogs to achieve their goal! They learnt this from the Inuit, whereas the Scott expedition used ponies and mechanical sleighs, which were both a disaster.

It was a couple of years plus ago now, but I recall getting onto the Internet and searching for aircon reviews and found some in the US and the UK, which I duly noted. There were several websites I visited which gave the lowdown (and tests) on various makes, and I spent at least a couple of months doing my research, and finally settled for the Mitsubishi Electric Mr Slim Inverter model and luckily enough just after I had decided upon this, a local large equipment store had the model I wanted on a special offer, with free fitting, so I jumped at the chance. Like you, cost wasn't really the deciding thing, efficiency and reliability rated highly for me, and so far I have not been disappointed. Good luck in your efforts.

I have had Samsung air cons and really don't think they are up to scratch, and even though I am in a rental apartment now, I replaced the current Samsung aircon with one from Mitsubishi Electric, and that is great. I did a great deal of research before settling on the Mitsubishi, and was also impressed with Daikin and Hitachi air cons, and I wanted an inverter unit, so the Mitsubishi fitted the bill exactly.

I have used Ted Lapidus EDT since 1987 and nothing else I have tried comes close to it, and I still buy it online, although it is not easy to find or to ship, but I manage to get it sent via friends. And for those interested I do shower up to 2 times daily and I do use an antiperspirant!!

Will be interested in your feedback JW.

Help needed! I thought I saw a post very recently on here (over the last few days I think) in which a poster had watched a movie/series/doco and he thought it rated around an IMDB rating of 10, or thought it should have been. However I can't find it now, so can anyone throw any light on the mystery??

I have just read that this procedure is available at Bangkok Phuket Hospital, and is under the auspices of one of my favourite doctors there, Prof. Dr Art, so that is very fortuitous, and I will persevere for a short while with my "workaround" and in the meantime I will make a note to go and see Dr Art after a couple of months. Thanks again simple1.

I had read about this procedure simple1, and I will investigate whether it is available here or not, however in the meantime I am persevering with intermittent catheter use, and using it three times a day to try and get the bladder back working again (fingers crossed). As you may have read in my post, I do have a sort of "workaround" using a laxative, which does help because I am one of those people who is always chronically constipated!!! Even with spicy Thai food and raw chilis. I have just read the link you provided (thank you) and would like to ask if the finished product inhibits you in any way at all, such as: – in sleeping, showering, having a massage etc?? Thanks for posting your info.

My experiences are related to prostate, and associated problems, so I will post here, although I think I've also posted on another prostate/rezum thread, but anyway here goes. I have just come back from Bumrungrad Hospital after going there for some treatment and I was very impressed with it, because it is a very well run hospital with excellent staff, and whilst I was waiting for my procedure, I noticed a very large cardboard cutout "advertisement" for Rezum treatment of the prostate, so they are now using that procedure at Bumrungrad. I have to thank @Sheryl for her recommendation of Dr Charuspong Dissaraan, because he is excellent and as she stated in another post, has an excellent "bedside manner", explains things in great detail/fully and seems a very caring doctor. So I also highly recommend him. As for me, well I eventually bit the bullet and went to this hospital to try and sort out my problems of not being able to pee, because it was wearing me down having to use a catheter and get up around five times a night to try to empty the bladder, but to no avail on many occasions, although I didn't use the catheter every time, just stood there pointing Percy at the porcelain, all to no avail. After a first consultation with Dr Charuspong, he determined that he would book me in for an appointment in two days for a urodynamic flow test, followed by a cystoscopy, and then an overnight stay to possibly treat something like a bladder neck stenosis, all of which I thought was brilliant because one of them had to solve my problem I would have thought. It got to a point where I wasn't really worried too much about the cost, because if I stayed in hospital my insurance would cover it, whereas if it was just an outpatient treatment I would have to pay for it myself. Turned up at the hospital at 9 AM two days later and proceeded to have the urodynamic flow test, which I can only describe as "different". It involves sitting in a specially adapted chair contraption which has a container to collect urine, footrests which are adaptable and it's a bit like the "chair" one sees in a maternity ward! At this particular time one has to let ones inhibitions/modesty go out of the window, because they insert a very thin catheter in the end of the penis, and a very thin catheter into the rectum, which is available to them because of the angle in which one sits in the chair. Not painful, nor really uncomfortable once it's done, although getting the sticky tape off the old fella after the two hour procedure was another matter altogether – – tears to the eyes and biting hard to alleviate the pain! The object of the exercise is to connect the catheters via special connectors to a machine which monitors the bladder and its contractions, all the while feeding a small amount of water/saline into the bladder in order to effect this. I was hoping for some good news, however to all intents and purposes I had no bladder action whatsoever, so he did the procedure a second time just to check (a very thorough Dr I will add) and the same result. So it was removal of the catheters (ouch) and a quick consultation in his office whereby he/we decided that as he had found the cause of not being able to empty my bladder, a cystoscopy was not necessary, nor was a bladder neck incision operation, which relieved me somewhat, but saddened me in another way, this because I was going to have to use a catheter to empty my bladder 2 to 3 times a day for the rest of my life probably. However rather than rush through it like my urologist did in Phuket, he took time to explain things, how I should go about catheterisation, how I should store the catheter and other things relating to the hygiene around it to stop any infections. So upon leaving his office I was resigned to my catheter use forever, although he did say that sometimes if the damage to the nerves in the bladder wasn't too serious, that some urine evacuation could take place given time. In a way I was glad to leave Bangkok because staying overnight in hotels is not ideal where one doesn't have the access to the usual things pertaining to catheterisation and it's a clumsy exercise when those things aren't available, and more to the point I wasn't getting any sleep and probably haven't had a good night sleep in months – – literally. Now onto the prostate part of the equation: – I had thought that it was the prostate which had grown back after my initial TURP which was causing the problem, but obviously not, nor was it a bladder neck problem, and since I had had a cystoscopy some six or eight months ago which didn't show anything up, he said it wasn't necessary to have another one, whereas I thought a second opinion might be good in that regard, however he thought it wasn't necessary. So I changed my air ticket and flew home to Phuket yesterday and as I was able to empty my bladder using the catheter in familiar surroundings, I did have a few good hours of sleep last night. Before I finish this saga, I will explain how this nonworking bladder event occurred, and I discussed this with the doctor, so it's from the best source possible: – over many years I have been employed in high level management and stressful positions in multinational companies, Rank Xerox, American Express and as Chief Manager Investments of a subsidiary of CBA bank, and I would be diligently working at all hours, especially in the last two jobs without paying attention to my bladder needs, and indeed if I felt the need to go to the toilet, because I was stretched for time, I would mentally override that sensation (yes you can do it) and carry on working and I did that for two or three decades if not more and once that is done, the bladder stops responding to the signals it has been receiving, which happened in my case. The nerve endings in the bladder signal the bladder neck to loosen and allow urine to pass, and because the bladder had become overstretched consistently for decades, those nerves ceased to function in my case. So there's a lesson to be learned for anyone who would listen, and that is always to respond to the needs/signals of your bladder, or suffer the consequences over time. However there is a light on the horizon, because in discussing my situation with the good Dr Charuspong, I mentioned that I could pass urine if I took a laxative in the early hours of the morning and when it worked, I could pass some urine, which was a blessed relief, although the urine amount wasn't much, it was enough to stop feeling full. This especially as there is a laxative which can be taken on a daily basis which is safe for people with chronic constipation, and which doesn't affect the normal workings of the bowel. The Dr explained that although the nerves in the bladder were not reacting to the urine content, the pressure put upon the bladder when using the laxative was enough to force some urine out, and this even more so if I took Cardura XL, which although is meant to relax the muscles in the prostate, also does so in the bladder neck, so this will help me, and just this morning it has – – thankfully. Now onto something which is near and dear to many people's hearts, COST! I didn't find it that expensive considering the treatment which was the two hour session with the urodynamic flow test, with two nurses in full-time attendance, plus the technician who was in charge of the machine, and visits by Dr Charuspong to monitor progress, as well as two consultations with the good doctor, so a total cost of 39,000 baht seemed reasonable to me. In addition I got an estimate for the cystoscopy, and that was 20,000 baht, which is exactly the same cost as here in Bangkok Phuket hospital, so not unreasonable in my estimation. So in answer to the post by riclag, the rezum treatment is available at Bumrungrad, and it is a hospital which I would now fully recommend, and I did notice that they have the da Vinci robotic machine, which is used for prostate removal and other complicated surgeries. Sorry it's been so long, but I thought I would put my experiences down on paper in case it helped another poster.

Thanks for the link, as it contains a wide variety of articles and research outcomes.

Good info, but does nothing to detract from the fact that Russia is the aggressor and that the Ukraine wants to become a state on its own, free from Russian influence.

I am fed up with hauling water bottles up the steps to my apartment, and also carrying them around on my motorbike in order to get them here, so I would be very interested in something which doesn't take up too much room and which can produce safe drinking water. Can you therefore give me an example of such a thing in Thailand or a link to a supplier/seller. Many thanks in advance.

I think that about sums it up for me as well, because I am extremely self-sufficient, and women in general do like to feel that they are essential in your life, when to me they are not! I did get married in the UK in 1977, but it only lasted for about 2 1/2 years because my wife then tried to change me, tried to stop me from playing football, tried to stop me from training, tried to stop me from meeting friends in the pub (even though I said we should go along together) and it became unbearable. She just wanted to sit in every night watching television, just the same as her parents had done for just about all of their lives. When we parted company two and a half years after the marriage, I remember her shouting some obscenities at me, as well as, "you know, you are going to be a lonely old man in the future". To which I replied, "I will be alone, which I like, but I never get lonely". And that is true, because I don't.

Unfortunately it's not just the Thais who are guilty of not wearing a crash helmet, because where I am located there are just as many farangs who don't wear a crash helmet, and who drive around shirtless and sometimes shoeless on their big motorbikes.......so a lack of grey matter is, unfortunately, not just a Thai thing.

Read and learn............... Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

Are you serious? Reading a few of my previous posts may give you a clue.

Similar experience here, becoming good friends with a guy who was paralysed from the waist down, and I was his designated wheelchair pusher/carer for about five years, which I didn't mind one bit because he was a great guy. I didn't have any choice about being vaccinated, and I'm so pleased that I didn't, because about the time when the vaccination became available there was a poor guy in our town who was in an iron lung, and in those days they were big hefty old things, and he used to be driven round in the back of a large Commer van, and he would be taken to schools where he could answer questions from us schoolchildren, this after his Dr/carer had given us the lowdown on his condition and this disease. It was as if he was from another planet because he was in this big iron lung and although he could speak, if he was taken out of it for any length of time, he would die. And he made a huge impression on us schoolkids and our parents because they would be invited along to hear what was being said. I also had the good fortune to meet a very attractive girl, in the late 60s, but unfortunately she had also contracted polio as a kid and could only walk with crutches and calipers and it was such a shame to see such a beautiful looking girl being set back like this. I often wondered what her future would be like, but the poor girl was killed when her specially adapted three wheeled car turned over and caught fire with her in it, and she couldn't escape and was burnt to death – – so sad. However I do believe that my school friend went on to get married and have children, and I do believe he is alive today, so as I'm writing this I will make an effort to get in touch with him. Moral of the story is that vaccinations have saved countless lives, and that's why the medical profession/specialists/scientists develop them.

Reading some of the posts on here, I find it incredulous that there is still a great deal of stupidity out in the world, so one only hopes that the Darwin effect can weed out these poor unfortunates. There is nothing really to argue about, because the overarching principles are: – – Vaccinations have been around for over a century. – The new mRNA vaccine was being worked on over 60 years ago, so it is not new. – Just over 10 billion doses of vaccines to fight the coronavirus have been delivered worldwide to date. – For those people who think their immune system will protect them, so did many of the 9 million who have died so far worldwide, and they were not all oldies, as others would have you believe. And one thing that the people who rail against the vaccine forget is that "we" have trained scientists, physicians, doctors, specialists, nurses to take care of our health needs and problems, and they do a fine job at that. And around 99% of the people mentioned above worldwide, believe in the vaccine, with just a few rogue folk, who are often in it for financial reward, opposing it and spreading lies on suspect social media sites– – so are we to believe the 99% of the specialists who have been trained in this field, or the almost negligible percentage of rogue "doctors and so-called specialists" who oppose it? It beggars belief when you look at it like this, especially when we are quite willing to put our lives in the hands of these specialists when something goes wrong with our health.

So a win/win as it does everything I want. Also had it checked by an Apple fanatic friend of mine and he was impressed with it.......