xylophone

That's the first time I've seen reference to what caused his death, as I couldn't find it anywhere else. Sad, very sad.

Yes, and if they don't have it in stock, they can order it for you. As another poster, voyagerUSA, has said, it was often prescribed for women, especially with cystitis, and because it is a broad-spectrum antibiotic, and there is very little antibiotic resistance to it, it is a useful "old" drug that has been revisited for use in those with cystitis/urethritis/prostatitis by a few knowledgeable urologists, and I am so pleased that I found it/was recommended it by a professor specialising in this field.

Thankfully after trying fosfomycin, with a backup of doxycycline, the problem has not returned and it has been more than a year now, so I'm very thankful for the advice I got from the professor I contacted. Sadly he recently passed away, so my avenue to him is no longer available, but as I said, I don't have the symptoms anymore, so thank you Professor and RIP.

Try "Format Factory" as that does most things!!

You ask a very searching question Dart, because none of the urologists I saw did anything other than to prescribe antibiotics, which was common and still is to a certain extent. Although I will say apart from the doxycycline, that the other doses of antibiotics were only for a couple of weeks, which really didn't make much of a difference in the long run. Looking back and trying to remember all of the urologist/hospital visits is a bit hazy now because it was some 40+ years ago, but with the benefit of hindsight I will say that early on in the piece I did have an STI or two (being a lad about town) and I think that's what led to my prostatitis, which was totally different because it resulted in aching testicles, an ache in the perineum and also sometimes in the buttocks, and that would come and go. Because it was treated no differently than a UTI/STI, doxycycline was dished out and did calm it down for a while, until it didn't. Earlier in life, the general approach by doctors and urologists to anything approaching a UTI/cystitis/urethritis/prostatitis was dishing out antibiotics, without really getting to the bottom of it. So there's not much that I could have done earlier in life, but for the younger folks out there a, couple of bits of advice: – – visit the toilet and empty your bladder whenever you can, something I didn't do because of a high-pressure job, so put off visits to the toilet in order to carry on working. – Wear a condom when having sexual intercourse; always. – Don't settle for the advice of any old Doctor, seek out the best urologist, although it didn't help me much, but these days more is known about these conditions. And I will repeat something which I have repeated often and which the Professor of urology (sadly now deceased) told me; "this area is like a medical wasteland" so seek out the best available and don't settle for being palmed off with an antibiotic, until you have done all of the tests and procedures to determine exactly what the cause is.

Pick a hospital which has the da Vinci robotic machine to remove prostate.......less chance of problems after removal.

Pleased that it worked for you, but it was a bit of a "shot in the dark", so to speak. However you have hit on one of the conundrums regarding antibiotics and bacteria, because as the Professor of urology I have spoken to, found out, deep-seated bacteria, especially those behind a biofilm, need longer term exposure to some antibiotics in order for them to penetrate that biofilm, which is why he has had success in this field, prescribing antibiotics over the longer term in some cases. OR by turning to an antibiotic which has been little used over the past decades, namely fosfomycin (which is a broad-spectrum antibiotic), so that any resistance to it is minimal, and that has proven to be the case. I think that's probably why it worked for me, and indeed other research I have found has pointed to the same thing.

Wrong on that, and I should know because I was there with him almost every night, helping him around in his wheelchair (MS sufferer). Mind you he did used to snort the "Bolivian marching powder" (such as it was here, which was very poor) in the toilet to help with his pain, but he would have no one selling it or dealing it in his bar. No, he knew the things which made a bar successful due to his time spent in London opening and running a couple of nightclubs – – pretty girls (with low bar fines), conviviality and a laugh and a joke, not to mention generosity, which was repaid many times over by the customers.

With respect, I don't think you'll find that there are many of those ancient remedies from which current medications are developed, maybe just a few, but not many. Those I do know of are from the Deadly Nightshade plant and Foxglove, not to mention aspirin from willow bark and there are probably more out there which I can't recall at the moment, however when you consider that there are tens of thousands of drugs which have been developed over the years, those emanating from ancient remedies/plants are but a very small fraction, and as has been noted, do not stand scrutiny because of poor testing procedures et cetera.

Yes I forgot to mention that, because when his friends turned up at the bar they would always buy him a drink, and he never refused, so he would buy them back and so it went on and in the end he became what I would call a "functioning alcoholic" and eventually died of cirrhosis of the liver, despite efforts to try and wean him off the booze, because when you own a bar, it's damn near impossible. Having said that when I first came here I looked into owning a bar and a very shrewd guy who owned one in Bangla, and who took a bit of a liking to me, did discuss it with me and showed me that he was making a profit, and when I asked him how he managed to stay sober all night and not have any liver problems, he told me his secret.....whenever friends would buy him a drink, his staff knew that his drink was Jack Daniels and Coke, and they would put a lot of Coke in the glass and just one capfull of Jack Daniels, so he never got drunk or had liver problems. Shrewd man.

I wasn't going to answer your question, but decided that I would and here is the reason: – I posted either here or earlier on about the "placebo effect" and also posted elsewhere about all of the supposed natural "cures" which have not been thoroughly tested. Indeed none of the "regular" natural treatments have made any difference to me over the years nor to friends of mine, and in all of the research I've done, there is no definitive positive outcome, and I quote the below: – The American Urology Association's updated guideline for the management of lower urinary tract symptoms attributed to benign prostatic hyperplasia (2021) could not make any positive recommendations about supplements and nutraceuticals, including stinging nettle, due to variable results, methods, and quality of studies.(103) The European Association of Urology's 2022 updated guideline on management of non-neurogenic male lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), including benign prostatic obstruction makes no specific recommendation.

I can give you some figures from a friend of mine here who ran a bar here, here being Patong, which one could argue is not that dissimilar to Pattaya, and he was very successful for a few years, mind you it was in one of the best Sois in Bangla Road. The key money was 3 million baht upfront for a three year lease with rent around 80,000 baht per month (or was it 60,000??) And after he had paid for all the overheads and staff, he still came out with a 1.5 million baht profit some years. Mind you it was a very popular and busy bar because he hired pretty girls, and he had a following from friendships made in London over many years of owning nightclubs. Brown envelope money wasn't much at all and was dealt with by his Thai wife and I think it was in the region of 3,000 baht per month, mind you, for that he was able to stay open until 4 or 5 am in the morning, which he often did. For the good staff he wanted to keep, he rented a house which cost him 17,000 baht per month. He kept his own books and he would often ask me to review them to make sure he hadn't made any mistakes, but although his work was slow and laborious, he really didn't make any mistakes, although he was suffering from MS which didn't seem to impact upon his business. So he made good money on it for about five years and then the slowdown came, way before Covid, and patronage dropped off quite markedly and I remember him calling me round to his house one day and he said, "you know, I can't make out whether I made 10 baht last night, or lost 10 baht, so as that's been happening a bit lately, I think it's about time I sold the bar". It had just under a year left on the lease, so I managed to get 800,000 baht for him, and he was happy with that. I have known five guys here who owned bars, the one I mentioned above, who mostly did well out of his time owning it; another guy who owned a bar just opposite and who couldn't make it work, and who hung himself because of money and girlfriend problems; another guy who walked away from his bar because he couldn't make it work, sold his house for a loss and went back to England; another English guy who couldn't make it work, so borrowed money, but still sold it for a loss and still owes big money to a friend; and lastly another friend who took out a 10 year lease on a bar (friends told him not to do that!) and who was cheated out of it by his girlfriend who was not only pocketing the rent money which she was supposed to pass on to the Soi owner, but because her name was on the lease, she sold it whilst he was away. Such are the trials and tribulations of bar ownership in Thailand. Not hard to see why it's a tricky business.

Yep, certainly had a nose job and see many like that around the place, however I wonder if this competition is for transgenders as well??

As a wise old guy said to me when I was an young apprentice, "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see".

Not 100% sure about this, but perhaps he could be trained to self cath (use a catheter on himself) which I have to do because my bladder has ceased to function – – don't ask me why, because none of the urologists here know. However it is not difficult, using an ultra-thin catheter and some lubricating/numbing jelly, and provided that plenty of hand washing and sterilising goes on beforehand, then it becomes quite easy. I have also met a poster on here who has had the operation to allow urine to be extracted through an orifice in his stomach, and he said he lives a normal life and really doesn't think about it these days. Worth investigating further I think

Well, just after he married Diana, he told her that he was going to have a mistress, because many of his predecessors had, and Camilla was that mistress – this despite a recent newspaper article from a palace "insider" that suggested Diana was the first one to stray. So I lost respect for Charles way back then, and also for the royal family, apart from Queen Elizabeth II, and including Prince Philip who was a racist bigot. And look at the latest round of cr@p going on with the royal family. Perhaps Charles can find himself a magician who could turn him into a tampon, which was his main aim in life according to intercepted telephone calls with Camilla!

Well he could start by ditching that old bag Camilla!

True, and from his profile it would appear that he is a director/managing director of a local company, or a company based in Phuket – – so one would assume that he was a knowledgeable guy and would therefore have things such as insurance all done and dusted. But then again, maybe he's been living from hand to mouth and has no money available, even from the funds supposedly put aside for his retirement extension?

Well you couldn't put him in an economy seat without it!

See my post.

Okay, some more information for you (and thank you for your kind feedback)....... Doxycycline does appear to work, HOWEVER, I was prescribed one 100 mg per day for 90 days and sure enough the symptoms went away for about two months or so and then returned, and I tried the same again, and the same thing happened, and also again. I then got a prostatic massage to try and identify any bacteria in the fluid, and none could be found (although I did have another one later and that was the same outcome). I have tried just about every antibiotic and anti-inflammatory, and it was then that I found that two urology professors, one in London and one in Sydney had done a lot of research on this and came up with what they considered to be the best outcome they could find – – fosfomycin (monural) one sachet taken every two days, three times and doxycycline 100 mg one per day for a month. And if there were setbacks in this regime, they advocate the use of Methenamine Hippurate (this is sold over the counter as "Hiprex", which if you cannot find here, can be purchased online from a couple of Australian pharmacies), which acts as a sort of urinary antiseptic if you wish, but they are convinced that this can be a great help, especially for hard to treat infections So I tried that regimen and it worked, and when I got in touch with the Harley Street (London) Professor and told him that the treatment had been successful, he was pleased and said that this was the combination that had been most successful for him and his fellow Professor in trying to beat this urethritis/prostatitis/cystitis type symptoms. However he also said that dogged persistence was needed. I have found in my experience with urologists in the UK, New Zealand and here, that their knowledge of what causes the symptoms is very limited/cloudy indeed, and that is why many of them will go down the route of prescribing the "usual suspects" of antibiotics and because there are newer ones than fosfomycin and doxycycline, very often these are not top of mind and not prescribed. This being the case you can be prescribed a fluoroquinolone (ciprofloxacin is one) which can have quite severe tendon consequences for the patient, or indeed any number of other antibiotics, none of which seem to work that well. If I were in your position I would try this combination of antibiotics and luckily enough fosfomycin is a relatively "harmless" antibiotic and doesn't cause much in the way of problems, and you take one sachet and that will be effective for three days, however they recommend taking one every two days, three times, at the same time commencing the doxycycline regimen. I would give that a try and see how it goes for you, and I'd rather you did that before I gave you the names of the two professors, because they both have very expensive practices and I'm not sure they would like phone calls from around the world, seeking telephone cures, all because they helped me a while ago!! I'm sure you can understand this. By all means come back to me if you need more information, or if it's of a sensitive nature, by all means send me a Private Message. Only too pleased to help if I can. More info for you:- -- The presence of prostate stones contributes to the persistence of infection and patients with prostate calcifications and CBP are considered to have a biofilm infection and are more likely to experience relapse following antimicrobial therapy; therefore, prolongation of therapy (as already indicated here) is indicated in these patients.38,39 --Urinary tract infections “A 5-year study evaluating over 19,500 uropathogens and resistance patterns suggests the expanded use of FOM (as the tromethamine salt), among a few others, for acute uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTI) [141]. Among community-acquired urinary tract pathogens, E. coli is the most prevalent [142]. In a study of 52 patients and in other observations, FOM tromethamine administered once every other day(3g) for three cycles was found to be an inexpensive, effective and suitable alternative in the therapy of ESBL-producing E. coli-related lower urinary tract infection [142, 143]. In the treatment of UTIs caused by fluoroquinolone-resistant strains of E. coli and in regions with elevated ciprofloxacin resistance, FOM tromethamine should be further evaluated as a first-line therapeutic approach due to excellent results [144]. A study on resistance rates showed that FOM showed the lowest overall resistance for E. coli in comparison to amoxicillin, co-trimoxazole and ciprofloxacin [145].” PS. FOM tromethamine = Fosfomycin

Read my follow up post before responding next time!!!

I couldn't help myself last night so I re-watched "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks, and enjoyed it just the same as I always have, and as usually happens I spotted a few things which I hadn't noticed previously. However the ending is the bit that gets me because it's a bit of a heartbreaker/tearjerker, with Hanks going to the house of his ex-girlfriend (the superb Helen Hunt) to see her, even though she is now married. It's obvious that they are both still in love with each other, and the part where she runs down the driveway after him and gets into his car, leads one to believe that she will go with him, but then sanity prevails and she realises that she now has a husband and a child, and Hanks is in the past, no matter how much she still loves him. So well acted, and gets me every time. One of my favourite movies. PS. I must get a remastered version and put it on my laptop as the one I have is "suspect" in quality.

I had the same problem as you for many decades, and every time one antibiotic or another would seem to work, only for the symptoms to come back a few months later. So I did some research and it appears that inflammation can be the cause of prostatitis/urethritis and quite a few antibiotics do have an anti-inflammatory effect. On the other hand there are many other factors which come into play, namely a biofilm, under which bacteria are able to "shelter" and which many antibiotics cannot penetrate, as well as the prostate being in itself, difficult to penetrate (and yes I did have prostatic massages to try and identify a bacteria, but to no avail). In desperation I sought out to professors who were looking into this very problem, and had been for some time and the information I got from both of them has worked – – namely Fosfomycin (also called Monural here) and doxycycline to back it up if not it first successful.

Yes Dr Charuspong is good and was recommended by Sheryl.