Crouton

Hi,

I was out today looking for 1-3 month place to stay with around your specifications.

Firstly, if you aren't friends with any thais in BKK , maybe hire a guide for the day. Thais can get you an apartment for a month for 4,500 baht , usually. We went around today and the places we tried are full till the end of the month. You will be buying 4,500 baht/month neighbors of course but it depends on your priority.

The reason I'm writing is I went out to see Greenery House today. The place is amazing and it should be for the price that far out. First, don't expect an 8,000/month to be available. You'll need to buy at least the 10,000/month. New furniture, nice people, immaculate BUT, and this is a big but, its not in a good location. Im not sure where you need to go/from but its a good 15 min moto ride from the subway and not an easy one at that. If I didnt have to travel into bangkok proper Id move in tomorrow. The closest moto taxi stop closes at 7 PM and they say 20 minutes at least if you call for taxi ( traffc depending). If you will have scooter or car go for this place, otherwise be prepared for transport issues.

There are some deals to be had out in On Nut.If you find a place reasonably close to the skytrain stop there the distance from BKK is worth it for the price ( 10 ish minutes down to siam or somewhere - do remember the BTS stops at midnight and starts at 5:30am or 6). There are motorcycles running up and down the streets non stop for just a few baht to get you to your door if you don't want to walk.

I'm paying 6k / month

Guess we would need to know your minimum requirements as far as location/apartment size/amenities etc to make a more useful suggestion.

Q1: Yes, it's called an IP camera - standalone doesn't need to be connected to a computer. Connects to the network via ethernet or wireless

Q2: Usually bundled with the camera

Q3: Yes

Q4: With bundled software or through a web interface.

Q5: Many , popular brands are Dlink and Levelone

I haven't looked at the prices of standalones in quite a long time so Im sure they've come down in price but picking up an old almost free computer to run linux on and connect a cheap camera ( with available linux drivers!) could be a solution as well.

I was wondering i am taking a vacation to thailand, and have a slipped disk in my lower L5 i was wondering the Thai laws on bringing pain medication back to the US. just wondering to be on the safe side. any help would be great thanks.

Hi qtiracer18t,

If you are bring prescription drugs back to the USA from Thailand it is the US customs you need to be concerned with. There has ben alot of flux in the laws the last several years with people buying cheaper drugs in Canada and Mexico and bringing them back for their personal supply. You may want to double check that there haven't been any more changes recently but the last I understood it:

1) You must declare the medicine in customs and you can now bring a 50 unit supply of EACH type of medicine if you have a valid prescription from the originating country.

2) You can bring a 90 day supply if you have a valid prescription for the medicine in the USA as well.

The law used to let you bring 90 day supply from the country where you bought the medicine regardless of a US prescription but that was tightened up.

All that being said, it is possible to get a prescription medicine in another country and then have that medicine be scheduled differently in the USA so it is not allowed to be prescribed and you would be in big trouble at customs for importing the illegal medicine ( probably a narcotic).

I believe it is also legl for you to mail the medicine from Thailand to the USA accompanied by a note from the authorizing doctor in Thailand so you don't have to deal with it in US customs.

It sounds like the medicine would be for you but to be clear, the prescription would have to be for you and not your grandmother if you are carrying it.

I seem to recall a few years back a few grandmother/grandfather types were busted bringing their US prescribed but bought in Mexico drugs when they returned to the US. If possible I would make sure to have a US prescription and Thailand prescription ready to present. One important thing to note is that depending on what the medicine you are buying in Thailand and bringing to the USA is, it may very well be "over the counter" in Thailand but not in the USA. The pharmacies in Thailand are able to sell a good many drugs over the counter after talking with the pharmacist that would require a doctor prescription in the USA. I suppose in this case you could probably just see a Thai doctor and get the prescription, say for Tramadol, when if you weren't transporting it to the USA you would just walk into any pharmacy and askfor it.

The government has seemed to quieted down a lot on the cheaper importation of medicines from other countries recently but a few years ago when they seemed to want to make examples out of people I would have said its not worth the chance they catch you on a technicality.

All this having been said, if you read through this thread you know there's a big availability gap between the weaker pain medication and the very strong stuff. Im curious what you think would be worthwhile taking back.

After having typed that I realized if/when i need to transition back to vics/percs from fentanyl patch I'll be in for some fun.

Bye now,

Jack

PS. I read that the fentanyl concentrations start to level out after 10-12+ hours of patch application. What hit me at around hours 13-14 + was completely unexpected. Very very strong increase when I thought it had more or less leveled. Be careful where you are at/ what you are doing for at least the first 24 hours I'd say if you get prescribed this ( the doctor and pharmacist in the hospital failed to even mention this to me )

Crouton, I know Dr Visit. He diagnosed me with dengue fever last year and sent some blood off for confirmation. When I went back to him an hour later he told me it wasn't dengue. I asked what he thought it was and he told me either leukaemia or a virus ! We agreed that as I had no other leukaemic symptoms we would go with virus. Honestly, if I weren't as old as I am I would have been scared witless.

Good luck with your quest for pain management.

Leisurely

Well I go see Dr. Visit and tell him that we didn't find it in his medicine bible because its not sold here. I try to explain to him that I've been talking with all of you and got information on possible alternatives assuming he want want to store this information for later use. He doesn't care.

I had written down on a sheet of paper the ms contin, fentanyl patch ( 3 days - 50 mcg as was written in the post here) and tamagesic. I had quickly googled tamagesic and already decided it wasn't for me but it was still on my paper and when he saw that he got very concerned - not good for you. i think he was trying to say it was too strong. I wasn't interested anyway so I let it go at that and he looks up fentanyl and ms contin in his medicine bible to see the description. I'm no doctor but even I have the general notion of what they are and this is all they give in the book - a sentence or two and available dosages.

He tells me he thinks ms contin is good, reads in the "bible" the quick description that it is for acute pain in cancer patients. He looks at the 50 mcg dosage for fentanyl patch and laughs and says that is way too small ( the book didn't list mcg at all BTW - just 25mg, 50mg and 100 mg).

We decide I'll try both and see which works better. The 25mg he decides is too weak for me so Im testing the 50mg patches now and then ms contin if needed.

You were right, those patches are really expensive. They are doing the job well so far but if ms contin is close to the relief and much cheaper I may have to go that route. Im happy now with 3 day 50mg fentanly patches to try for the month.

Im not sure if he is "the norm" here in Thailand but he will just prescribe anything you show interest in it seems. Id imagine these patches would be worth quite a few baht on the street ( not enough for me to stay in pain though) so wonder how he can be so carefree giving this stuff out. It must be the office visit fee??

In conclusion thank you for the idea for the fentanyl patch as it is working wonderfully so far. The doctor would have never came up with it on his own.

When I go back to followup on the patches and possibly try the ms contin I'll post again for completeness.

I can't find my receipt right now and Im guessing somone may be wondering so my recollection is the fentanyl patches were on the order of a little over 1,000 baht a piece ( which last 72 hours ).

Bye now,

Jack

On u-torrent as far as CRC's - you can manually for a recheck on the specific torrent and it will read it and mark and pieces as bad and just download them. There's also an option to set so that it check's all the torrents for corrupt pieces everytime the u-torrent program is started. If you keep a lot of torrents seeding etc is kind of slow to do that every time.

First of all, thank you everyone for the replies. I really appreciate it.

To answer the first , and most important question, they can attempt to do another fusion with no guarantees of course and after the last experience its not something I want to do unless they tell it will have a very high success rate for me. My mother went through almost the same thing and her second failed one kept her almost bedridden and when she had to do things she was so zombied on meds it was terrible. They took her from morphine to fentanyl to methadone! ( I had never heard of methadone being used for pain treatment prior to that - just heroin rehab stuff ). Im not sure how the methadone actually worked out for her because she was very embarrased by the stigma that she was taking methadone. I tried to explain the logic against worrying about that over and over but never got far. This was in the US and the hoops she had to jump through to even get the stuff once the prescription was made was crazy.

Sorry, back to the original points. There's no way I want to jump to morphine ( if it would be available here ). Hopefully I never progress to to needing morphine but if I do I certainly don't want a head start on tolerance not to mention I assume it would make me pretty zombified.

I just assumed MS contin would not be available here since i thought ( and may be wrong) that it is much more powerful than vicodin or percocet. I will ask the doctor. If it is the medicine Im thinking of it is time released and would be good to use on days I know I need to be more active or recovering from a bad day.

I am truly shocked they prescribed you a fentanyl patch. I thought ( and am pretty sure) fentanyl was really hardcore and near the top of the severe pain management options. As with everything though, I guess they may have a really low dosage patch.Cost doesn't matter ( to a certain degree) if its what is required. I will inquire about this also but Im sure my doctor in the USA would laugh me out of his office asking about fentanyl as the government seems to really be giving doctors a very hard time prescribing the super strong pain meds regardless of how bad someone needs them. I think that is a really sorry state of affairs when a good legitimate doctor wants to manage his patient's quality of life with medicine and gets investigated and audited and generally hassled just because he has too many patients in that condition. Another aside here, my mother was a nurse and actually worked with most of the doctors taking care of her and they even tried to talk her into moving to a less powerful pain medicine because the doctors try to avoid the DEA hassle. I forget offhand what what the change they suggested was, perhaps it was going from morphine ( which had all but stopped working for her) back down to tramadol or something. I almost literally fell out of my chair when she told me that over the phone. Luckily, she knows the hospital chief of staff and primary partner at the practice so she was able to resolve that but what about a non-connected person?? They would be out of luck or I guess "doctor shop" maybe. Now that I think about it , perhaps it was her insurance pressuring the change and not the DEA monitoring prescriptions in that one case. I'll check with her ( if anyone actually cares ) and stop digressing again!

In regards to the one post about codeine, I was just prescribed it at the hospital here in BKK ( with para ), so it is certainly still available via hospital prescription just not when you walk into your corner pharmacy. if what I read is true, only hospitals are allowed to stock it now.

The constipation side effect - lol - Im new to Thailand and enjoying the food immensly. I love spicy food but my body hasn't adjusted yet so the constipation side effects of the opiates would be a plus for me right now!!

I asked at the local pharmacy and they do see tramadol over the counter. Depending on what my doctor decides to do I'm going to give it a try though I think the codeine will be more effective ( i just hate taking the para mixed with it all the time). Im going to inquire about taking tramadol and para+codeine together. I doubt he will think its a good idea or suggest a safe but working dosage but its worth asking while Im there.

As far as the addiction, the physical addiction is there for sure if you stop cold turkey your body will tell you it wants that medicine you've been feeding it ( besides all your pain coming back also) but the classic mental "euphoria addiction" generally doesn't apply ( except maybe the first bit after you are bumped to a stronger drug if it becomes necessary )

I had never heard of a TENS machine and no doctor has suggested it to me ( or my mother that I know of). I just googled it and will look into it. One of the initial things they did was hook me up to those wires zap electricty back and forth for whatever diagnostics , certainly not pain relief. Sounds similar though.

Thanks for still reading if you made it this far. your advice and information has been great which just got me to thinking. Why didn't the doctor in the hospital know/tell me all this stuff?? Perhaps I should go see the other Doctor in that hospital that was mentioned earlier. The guy did literally hand me the prescription handbook and told me to flip through and pick what I wanted when vicodin/perocet generic names weren't listed.

His name is Dr. Visit ( appropriate first name) Thienpaitoon.

Thanks all, I will update after my appointment.

Oh yeah, one more thing, I hope it wouldn't come down to this but would they be legal in say like Cambodia with a prescription? And then since legally prescribed able to be brought in Thailand or absolutely not?

Oh no, one more thing, last one for real this time - when I was googling for all this information on pain meds in Thailand, i ran across the articles where some online "pharmacies" in Thailand got busted for shipping pain killers and such around the world without prescription. A lot of the links were to still operating online pharmacies in Thailand to ship hydrocodone etc to people in US without a prescription. The irony that they have it for sale on the "black market" and we can't get it in a hospital in the same country.

-Crouton ( who got his first Sak Yant yesterday and hopes it protects him from some of this pain lol )

Hi,

Ive done a lot of online reading a searching and think I've found the answer to this question but would appreciate it if someone could confirm.

I had a failed disc fusion on my back in the USA and take Vicodin ( hydrocodone) for pain. I came to BKK and went to Bumrungrad to see a doctor to fill my prescription. He was a nice fellow with passable English but had no idea what hydrocodone ( or percocet aka oxycodone as a replacement when he didn't know hydrocodone). He pulled out his medicine book and couldnt find them under either brand or generic names. i thought this very odd but he handed me the book and browsed thrugh the pain medicine section and sure enough couldn't find it listed under any name. He ended up giving me para+codeine to try as a replacement.

I go back to see him this week as a follow-up and was certain Id find some thai specific name for vicodin or percocet and everything I see seems to indicate they are not available here at all. Is this correct??? It sure seems strange to me. I know some drugs still under exclusive license have their sales restricted but i thought these were old, well known and now generic drugs.

Is there a name Im missing I can use to refer to these or is para+codeine indeed the strongest available pain killer a doctor can prescribe in BKK?

para + codeine seems awful week just to me, I can't imagine what people with cancer and very very bad chronic pain are doing if they are forced to use para + codeine ( setting aside the liver issues with the para if someone were to take many pills to try to get a stronger dose of codeine for relief).

Thanks for any insight!

What is the name of the ritual where the monk takes a sharp sword and swings it at your back several times for protection?

I'll second the advice to do anything you need through the Denver consulate ( if you can ). The two woment who work there are extremely nice and friendly and do not seem very busy at all so , just my opinion, they aren't jaded by people trying to pull fast ones on them. I'm not sure if this is the same in other US consulates for Thailand but the head of the office isn't even Thai!. It appears to be a real estate business that does Thai visa's on the side. If you are in the area they work by appointment and couldn't be more helpful.

I'm surprised they refered you to LA as they originally thought I wanted a "B" and asked me to bring a letter from copany when I came. Im almost certain they would have given me whatever I asked for when I got there even without supporting documents as they really just wanted to please me ( and get me out of there as they take appointments up until noon and close at 12:30 and after chatting for a while first it was almost 12:30 ). If you happen to go there its immediately next to the Pepsi Center where the Colorado Avalanche play ( in their real estate company office lol ).

I just got a 3 entry tourist visa from my US Thai consulate this month.........

This seems to go against everything in this post but I arrived in BKK via the new airport a few days ago and accidentaly filled out the whole card ( departure and arrival) before I realized my mistake and no where did it ask me about income nor was i asked by immigration. I was on TV.

I thought Id give you the summary of my experience flying over this week. My flight took me from the US to Tokyo then swith planes and off to BKK.

When I checked in at the counter with my luggage and got my seat assignment the lady only cared about my luggage being under the maximum weight , no questions on return trip ( though I had one and Im sure it was in the computer if she cared) and no visa questions.

Next up, I had my boarding pass to tokyo and was getting ready to board the plane and the lady takes the boarding passes and lets you through. She does not have a computer, shes just standing in front of the ramp to the plane. She asked where i was goingand said BKK since I have a TV and return ticket and she immediately flagged me and sent me over to the counter. If I would have said Tokyo ( if i didnt have a return ticket) she would have never known and I could have boarded the plane.

So over at the counter, she sees i have a return ticket ( which is all she cared about because she didn't understand a thing about thai visas. She saw in my passport that I had to USE the TV before october which isn't relevant to anything at all since I was headed there that day. She seemed satisfied with that useless piece of information and sent me on my way.

In tokyo changing planes, no questions at all about thai visas or return tickets or anything.

I was on Northwest airlines by the way. Im sure different airlines may handle this differently but if you want the least hassle, don't even mention a connecting flight to thailand and I think no one will bother you ( especially if you don't have return ).

Thai immigration in the airport have taped up an extension on their rule board that now says "return ticket" but the customs official just waved me through without even looking at anything as far as flights.

Interestingly, on the Asia Wall Street Journal they handed out in the plane there was a full page article on Pattaya trying to clean up its image. They have a marketing budet of $400,000 - $500,000 worldwide which the Wall Street Journal all but laughed at.

Free beer and ribs! Count me in!

I'd like to come down from BKK. Can anyone recommend a cheap place to stay close to there?

Thanks!

Yahoo 360 free

This is the URL they gave me ...

http://360.yahoo.com/my_profile-tcAECOElaaOWaDruqSbnqBRa

What a ridiculous address. No-one will bother typing in this.

I have a colo server and can host your site ( and anyone else who needs one ) for free. You'll have to buy a domain name and point the domain to my server though. If you go to

http://www.godaddy.com

or something similar you can pick a domain name that isn't in use and buy it. It was like $8.99 ( US) last I checked. Yahoo and other places often have specials on domain names too.

If you want to do this, I'll need to give you the name of my DNS servers to put into your domain name information. Let me know.

( also the control panel for your site on my server has a program called "fantastico" which will automatically install many many different blog programs if thats what you are looking for).

Yahoo 360 free

This is the URL they gave me ...

http://360.yahoo.com/my_profile-tcAECOElaaOWaDruqSbnqBRa

What a ridiculous address. No-one will bother typing in this.

I have a colo server and can host your site ( and anyone else who needs one ) for free. You'll have to buy a domain name and point the domain to my server though. If you go to

http://www.godaddy.com

or something similar you can pick a domain name that isn't in use and buy it. It was like $8.99 ( US) last I checked. Yahoo and other places often have specials on domain names too.

If you want to do this, I'll need to give you the name of my DNS servers to put into your domain name information. Let me know.

( also the control panel for your site on my server has a program called "fantastico" which will automatically install many many different blog programs if thats what you are looking for).

One more guy needing advice on this:

1) How about a tourist visa for 60 days? Are you still required to have a return ticket/booking?

2) If so, could the ticket out of Thailand then be to a friendly neighbouring country where one could get a new single entry TV, and not a $1200 ticket to Europe for nothing?

3) Final Q: Anyone heard about a Thai engagement visa? I am planning to marry a local girl, but can not do that on current stay, has to be on next stay. In my country (Norway) that plan would probably earn me a 6 month "non-immigrant" visa to follow through on my plan. Anything similar in Thailand?

Thanx!

It seems if you get a TV from a neighboring country you don't have to worry about having a departure ticket. This seems to be the best thing to do. Oddly though I had to show one ( roundtrip ticket ) to get my TV at the Thai Embassy here in the US.

There is no special arrangements for a visa if you are engaged in Thailand as far as I know. Once you are married you can get the non-imm.

<br />I got two questions. Can somebody help?<br /><br />1. I came to Thailand on March 1st with tourist visa from US. What I plan to do is have an extension with 1900 baht fee on May 1st. Then I will have 3 stamps on June 1st, July 1st, and August 1st. Then go to Penang for tourist visa. Then repeat the same things. Is it ok?<br /><br />2. I read it here that I need onward ticket when I have my passport stamped. Can I just show them a ticket to neighbouring country, say singapore on September 1st, when I go have it stamped on June 1st? Then they know I will do 3 stamps.<br /><br />Please help. Thanks<br />

Supposedly the ticket must depart within 30 days but as with everything it is inconsistently applied.

<br />Hi again, <br /><br />Following last nights successful drive partition, before going to bed (tired, weary eyes) I wanted to move the My Docs folder to a new partition. instead of dragging, or cut'n'pasting, I for some bizarre reason, opened the properties for the folder, and changed the target. <br />I'm not sure why i did it this way. I was quite tired.<br /> <br />Everything was transferring and when it was done, I realised it had "copied" not merely moved. <br />So thinking, "great, everythings has moved!" I deleted the MY Docs folder on the C: drive. <br /><br />And then they were both deleted!!!!<br /><br />Now it isn't a massive deal, as my important stuff (tv.com smilies and avatars...) is backed up elsewhere.<br />Nonetheless.. is it retrievable?! <br /><br />(nothing in Reycle Bin) <br /><br />

If you want to successfully retrieve them , first of all don't do anything else on the computer. The files are there, intact, until the space is used for something else. Anything you do runs a risk of overwriting parts of the disk that hold the "deleted" files. You can use several programs to recover them - Filerecoveryangel, Recover My files, Final Recovery, File Rescue etc etc

Generally, the program will read your drive, give you a list of things that can be recovered, you choose and its back. Again, if the OS decided to write over part of the deleted files diskspace it may be partially corrupted.

If you need help getting stuff back I arrive in BKK on Wednesday and have several tools.

How does that 30% of funds banking thing work?

If I open an account in BKK and then wire money from the US is 30% of it going to be tagged?

Thanks,

By the way,

This is what I used

http://www.airlineconsolidator.com/

I just looked at your consolidator. Beware - the *next to the price says the price is from

"departing the most popular geographic location" They give an example that if you are flying to London the price is from NYC. So it looks like you'll have to figure in a ticket to get wherever they are flying you from.

" * We pride ourselves for being able to service the entire US. And with that, we advertise the lowest possible fare to the destination that we have in our contracts. That fare is for the departure from the closest and most popular geographical departure point to the desired destination. For example, if you have researching a flight to London, the website will display a price from New York."

Terry,

Do you remember if you were able to accumulate frequent flyer miles with these types of discounted tickets? I know that in some cases you can, other times not. I'll probably give them a call soon. I just hope it's not a bait and switch.

I just bought my tickets through a similar consolidator. After they issue you your tickets you can go to whatever airline's web site they put you on and put in your frequent flyer, choose seat etc. It's the same then as if you bought them from the airline.

My giirlfriend said this is now online on the thai news site ( in thai ). I don't see it on the English Bangkok Post or The Nation yet.

I was at the Thai Consulate in the US this week and found something interesting. I only noticed it because of your earlier post.

In the "Thailand Travel Guide" published by the "Tourism Authority of Thailand" which I assume you can get at any consulate. It plainly states:

"Non-residents are allowed to open foreign currency accounts with any commercial bank on Thailand. As a special gesture to non-residents, no restrictions are imposed on the maintenance of and withdrawl from the account, as long as the funds originate from abroad"

Not sure how much that will help but it seems the law is on your side.