jts-khorat

Not to derail this thread, but I had numerous friends of older age while living here in Thailand, stating something along those lines. Not a single one was able to overcome their innate instinct to prolong their life as long as possible, against all common sense (when seen from the outside). They all died in a hospital accordingly, instead of being home within a circle of their loved ones. My experience, with rural hospitals at least, is that they are quite willing to release patients back home where further care would clearly not prevent death, or switch off machinery to prevent mounting costs. On the other hand, something like proper palliative care is unknown there and this responsibility falls naturally back on the family. It is not a bad system, to my mind. I am sure, things in Bangkok are different, with proper care options in place, if one can afford it. In this case, this might not be an option, so if recovery is not a likely option, this man will need to think about a lot more than just the paying of bills. With modern telecommunications, family does not necessarily need to travel to be there. What about his circle of Thai aquaintances -- if he lived here for 20 years, he surely will have them? As you mentioned, your friend is still conscious, and the diagnosis sounds still optimistic ("He's now stable, on a ventilator and positive for Pneumonia which is being treated." ... "today the specialist said he will likely be in ICU for at least 10 more days"). Still, as a friend, it would be wise to enquire about his thoughts on these issues, as a turn for the worse can be coming quite abrupt. In the case of my friends in similar situations, some of them were so convinced that they would pull through -- or maybe in such a panic about the rapidly worsening circumstances -- that some had not even started to think about the necessary preparation for their loved ones. Believe me, it can be a mess if the list of adresses of friends and family to contact and all your banking options are on a laptop, where you have not told the password to anybody, even though you were in hospital for two weeks... Lastly, I too would like to commend you that you are sticking with your friend, in his worst and lowest moments, with nowhere to turn for help. This is what friendship is for: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". @jimmiejackson I would be happy to count you to my friends.

As I said, I have stopped strict keto after a year, as it was not necessayr any more. I had lost my weight, my blood values have become much better, my sleep has improved, etc. I am now eating a balanced diet of mainly vegetables and meat, with only small amounts of rice. I have reduced fruit intake to mainly berries from the garden, when they are in season (fructose can only be processed in the liver, so I do not eat too much fruit). Every now and then I partake in cake, cookies, chocolate, etc (especially now around Christmas). I try to make sure to be more strict with my intermittent fasting afterwards, fasting a few hours extra for a day or two. I really avoid fast food and ultra-processed food as good as I possibly can. Obviously no sugared drinks either. All in all, I guess this is the normal diet that anybody should have, without excess and without too much restriction. I do not think I would be able to be healthy on this diet, though, without my body having been brought back into a state of appropriate healthiness.

I cut out everything. Frankly, cutting out the rice was the most difficult, as my wife was and is having rice for every single meal (she is Thai, no surprises there). However, my main driver was getting rid of pre-diabetic symptoms like the constant fatigue and de-fatting my liver, and knowing the diabetes statistics for Thailand on their diet of polished white rice, I felt it better to not take chances. As I conquered food cravings this way completely, for any kind of food, I felt I am on the right way. I would have thought anew about it, had my body developed cravings for specific kinds of food, after having tested this approach for three months.

I started with the Intermittent fasting first. Over a month I saw no result, due to the horrible sugar cravings I had constantly, leading to binge eating episodes like I never had them before. After researching, mainly to better my pre-diabetes (I think the videos on Youtube of Dr. Sten Ekberg and Dr. Berg have been mentioned on here already), I reduced carb intake radically. This was a lot less comfortable for me, as I love my pizza and chocolate as much as the next guy. However, amazingly, food cravings during fasting went away completely within a little more than a week and they have not come back after re-introducing limited carbs into my diet after a year of keto. Also I started to drop weight almost immediately, while feeling more active at the same time, meaning that my life quality increased; so far, another year later, there has been no jojo-effect either (I managed to shed around 15 kg in my keto year and feel much, much better on this weight now). Of course, every body might react differently, but this was my experience. Might "just" doing intermittent fasting be enough for you? With regard to the red meat: I ate a lot of fish and chicken, but I like both. Living in Germany, I basically had no beef, as that would be a price point well beyond me, but my research showed that there would be indeed a difference between grass fed beef and grain fed one. As you seem to live in Australia, that should be much less of an issue for you. In the end, it will not hurt much to experiment with different options for a period of time and see, what brings results for you.

Not always does life follow the initial plan. If it would, I would be sitting in my pool villa jacuzzi overlooking a nice beach, right now. What I would never do is begrudge somebody a silent, peaceful existence somewhere, presumably still contributing to the well-being of his family or community in whatever limited manner, simply by being there. As Thailand has little social services this guy could possibly leach off, who could he even harm? I might take a different stance, if this person would be an underworld baron living off his ill-gotten riches, or some other kind of serious criminal. But then we would likely not be talking about a guy in some village in Isaan, no?

The problem with Western diet is, that lots of stuff is mixed together, which better should not be. This leads to statements as these, which are confusing at best, leading you into a whole wrong direction at worst. The biggest issue in modern society is, that most people are pre-diabetic, due to massive amounts of processed carbs being consumed. The body is basically in constant emergency mode, trying to keep a stable insulin level. Add then a diet abundant in salted meat, often also heavily processed, and you create a recipe (literally) for disaster. On top of that, we are under constant stress, with often bad sleeping habits, which tends to increase bad cholesterol with all its own side effects. Untangling this is really difficult, but you have to start somewhere, and -- in my opinion -- the best way is to cut your carb intake. I had great success following a pretty harsh keto diet for a year, together with intermittent fasting, to loose a large part of my excess weight and de-stress my body overall: and it worked! Nowadays, I am back to a more normal diet, cake, pizza and pasta are back on the menu, albeit a lot less than before. And I am still doing intermittent fasting and take care of consuming everything in a balance and without the excesses of previous times (which has become a lot easier, as the impossible food and sugar cravings have also simply gone). In the end, this is what my doctor told me: if you want to heal naturally and sustainably, there are no quick fixes, especially if it took years or even decades of improper food intake to create the situation in the first place (so a definite 'No' to statins). But in the end it is more than worth it.

This was way before the dawn of Viagra, so I can deduce that this would be unlikely. The placebo effect... maybe (but I doubt it, he was mixing in lots of herbal stuff in his concoction to be consumed right there, and the effect was going on for days -- not that I really needed it in those golden days of my youth ????).

I tried that once as I was very new in Thailand, 1998 in Hat Yai. Sadly I was never able to find that Chinese backyard shop again, to ask what they mixed in with the cobra blood and gall. I can only say: it worked, to the point of taking days to recede.

The problem with Padang Besar is, that it is a really bleak place, not really worth spending much time in (of course this is only my opinion). I guess people going there do this because they have either no money or no time to spend in Malaysia in the first place. Else, Padang Besar has of course a railway connection to get from there to other places in Malaysia, where spending time might be more worthwile -- but then maybe only 2 to 3 nights will not cut it.

Who nowadays actually listens to radio stations?! Of course, this story is in essence inflammatory, click-bait, but then again: who nowadays reads newspapers?! In the end, I try to insulate myself from the daily craziness out there by simply deciding to not myself be incensed by such a moronic story. I am sure it will add ten years to my life due to the avoidance of stress.

Maybe he is happy with a simple life in Isaan. Millions of Thais are.

It is indeed. But you misunderstand Theravada buddhism, obviously. The onus is on you, the individual, how you live your life. You have the active choice to collect either good or bad karma, and there is no big man in the sky removing the bad one later or giving you a pass through the door for 'repenting'. As such, Buddhism -- in its ideal form -- promotes self-responsibility. However, at the same time the Buddha recognized that most people are likely to fail to achieve the highest standard, at least within a single life time, so it also promotes equanimity and the acceptance for people behaving differently from the ideal, without accruing the shame of 'guilt'. Make out of that what you wish, but the reality of Thailand is, that it exists between those two opposite poles.

How long have you been in Thailand? Abortion here actually happens fairly often, I know multiple women who had one -- due to it being illegal at great personal risk to their health, as getting an abortion performed by a knowledgeable medical professional becomes even more of a lucky draw scenario than usual. For those who are against abortion, they would have to have been for reducing the main reason for it: namely the social inequality of girls in Thai society. We in the West overdo this in my opinion already in some instances, but in Thailand I have seen it happen so, so many times, that a girl had to change schools after getting pregnant, due to the shame, while the boy just went on with his previous life.

The current panic about it in western countries aside: this rather harmless sickness has been endemic in a number of African countries for many years now, so getting a case from this source is not surprising. While there is no specific treatment besides some antivirals, it usually subsides by itself within 2-4 weeks. My guess would be, that similar imports have happened many times in the past, just never recognized, because nobody looked specifically for it. The whole thing is of course just a media circus.

Quite typical for Thailand. And I would suggest, until we have some fall-out and the first few court cases behind us that *really* clarify the situation, it borders on lunacy for a foreigner to try this out by actually having their own plants in their house or smoking in public. Just because some, or even many Thais do it in the open and even sell in public, with obvious advertising, is and never has been an example what foreigners can do. What one does behind closed doors and in privacy -- discretion! -- might be the way to go, but that has been the truth for years. It might in the end all be ok. But if it is not, the potential consequences, especially for a foreigner, are in no proportion to the potential fun effect.

As I agreed above, the nightlife attracts many unsavory people. Petty criminals can be met there en masse, so nothing special about it. The reaction of some in this forum seems to suggest otherwise, so obviously people who have been wronged quite personally by this guy -- which means, they themselve must have been connected to local underworld activity as well.

I do agree with your opinion. But what some of the members here have demonstrated goes very far beyond 'staying clear' of somebody, especially if this person did, over years, little more than walk up and down Beach Road. Their strong reaction makes me think that they somehow are quite connected to the more shady things happening in the nightlife scene. Competitors, former collegues, business associates? In any case, these forum members have become, by their totally overplayed opposition, immediately suspect of being shady themselves. Dogs that bark might not bite, but they cannot ever be confused as being cats.

I just cannot understand the vitriol and the outladnishly negative reaction. Did you have any personal business with him? I talked to this guy once, he seemed nice enough. That he might have done some shady stuff in the past or that he might tell the one or other story which is borderline (un)believable sure cannot be the reason for such naked hate -- as pretty much every bar owner in Thailand is in the same class.

I wholly disagree with the drug laws of Indonesia. But holy f*, you must be completely stupid to travel around Asia with drugs in your bags. That this guy 'deserves' it (as somebody said a few posts back), is of course the wrong phrasing... but he really cannot be surprised about what is going to happen now.