VitalGirl

This same kind of accident happened to a local family years ago. They were driving back from Bangkok in heavy rain, the car probably hydroplaned, slid into the huge ditch in the middle of the road and everyone drowned except for the boy who was in the back of the SUV. His Aunt, Uncle, cousin and both grandparents died in that accident.

And that was at least 10 years ago. Safety rails don't seem to have caught on in Thailand yet.

Safety rails etc can't "catch on", as you put it, in a country with no tax base. You need to examine the Thai economy carefully and, when you do, you'll see that they do wonders with the little bit of road funding there is. If they had extra funding it might be better spent on driver education......

Not long after moving to BKK I became sick with what the doctor called called an infection of the upper respiratory tract - I had difficult breathing and was coughing up a lot of phegm and at night coughing a lot so couldn't sleep. The doctor gave me klaccid 500 anti-biotics which cleared it up.

The problem is that since then I have had the same condition a number of times I guess 5 or 6 times over the past two years. On occasion it cleared without anti-biotics but most recently not long after I gave up smoking it was particularly bad so I went and bought the anti-biotics.

I just wondered if anyone has had similar experience and had any advice.

Thanks BB

BB, I had something similar for over 4 years after an initial lung infection contracted in Burma. It steadily deteriorated to emergency room visits, oxygen and lots of over-the-counter pills and the Drs here saying they could no longer help. What you have actually sounds like what they call Chronic Bronchial Asthma - lots of night coughing and mucous and repeated infections. Recently, in desperation after two serious life-threatenitng asthma attacks in 4 weeks, I went to a Thai doctor here in Chiang Mai who specializes in asthma and allergies. In 2 weeks she gave me two dofferent courses of lung-specific anti-biotics, gunk-clearing medicines, an anti-histamine to help at nights and a long-acting broncho-dilator/steroid spray. A miracle, I tell you..... feel sensational. If bronchial asthma is untreated it will get worse. Suggest you see a good specialist soon - pooping endless non-specific AB's only makes you immune and makes the infections harded to treat next time. Good Luck... PM me anytime if you want some more thoughts or advice.

Juicing...

Replace most of the meal with fruit juice..

Seem be more healthy...

Anyone tried before?

How does it feel like?

Does it really work?

I did a month's supervised juice fasting and colonics with all the suplements etc at a reputable spa here in Koh Samui... felt and looked fabulous during and immediately after. BUT huge immune system problem that wasn't immediately obvious led me to contract a very serious lung virus on a visa run into Burma shortly thereafter. 4 years and 9 bouts of pneumonia later I would not encourage juicing or stringent fasting to anyone - every doctor and specialist since has said that both the juicing and fasting led to immune system weakness. Fruit juicing alone can also lead to very high blood sugar levels and exacerbate any tendency to diabetes. Go for a great salad instead and loads of water.....

There is a sign on the gate that says that they will be doing construction from July of 2007 until October of 2008.

Do they really intend to keep the gate closed for over one year? What could they be doing that would take that long?

My Thai husband has a shop in Tapae Sqare every Sunday - we've been told by the co-ordinator of the group of traders who has been liaising with the Tessabaan, that the square will be be re-opened October 2007. And why do it now? Same reason as things happen in any bureaucracy.... funds were allocated last year and have to be spent before new financial year... which starts October/November.

Wow thanks for all the great repsones guys, definatly alot of very useful info on there...seems im not the only one donig this Ive just gotten home and skimmed over the posts but i will have a good read through shortly and posisbly send out to PM's...thanksd again for all the information, much appreciated!

Congratulations...! Don't fret too much about some of the angst-ridden posts - gosh, started to stress me out! I'm an Aussie girl married to a Thai man and we had our baby here in Chiang Mai. Complicated emergency C section delivery due to impending uterine rupture and baby heart stress - lots of after care required and a week in Chiang Mai's #1 hospital with my husband and baby rooming in - total of only 39,000 for everything from the natural birthing suite (26 hours!) to the surgery to the private room to the newspapers. The citizenship through the Aussie embassy was a breeze - not expensive and we had it three weeks after lodging the paperwork. Our little girl will be 3 on Mother's Day (Aug 12) this year and all our visiting Aussie friends are envious of the care and life was have been able to provide for her here. Do your wife a favour and encourage her to stay near friends and family - she will need all that support, not for the birth but for the months and yeras afterwards. PM me anytime - happy to help and am fluent in Thai if your wife needs a chat.

Sorry, I am a male posting in your thread; I thought you might be interested anyway.

When my Thai girl-friend (at the time, now married 3 years) was pregnant we went along to the Bangkok-Pattaya Hospital in Pattaya.

The Gynecologist was a 40ish lady who was very friendly and helpful.

At the time, my girl friend's English was limited and my Thai is still limited.

The Doctor explained everything to my girl friend in Thai, then would turn to me and explain in English.

If my girl friend asked a question, she would still explain to me in English, then spoke the question before replying in Thai.

I guess we were lucky to have a very courteous Doctor that made sure we both understood exactly what was happening and what our options were.

However she was quite unwell after the Ceasarian (planned) and took a long time to recover.

Our second child was born in a public hospital in Melbourne Australia. May's recovery time was so dramatically faster it was like a totally different operation had been performed.

In Thailand it was 1 week before she could walk without major discomfort, but in Melbourne she got out of bed 6 hours after the operation saying she needed to pee.

We don't know what was different between the two births, but the recovery time was about 20% that of the recovery time in Thailand. (I am talking about the weeks after...)

I think I was up about 7 hours after my C section here in Thailand and had no trouble healing from the surgery whatsoever. Sounds like your girlfriend just had a rough time. Have to smile about Melbourne hospitals - having lived in Melbourne for over 20 years prior to moving to Thailand and also having worked for 3 of the big public hospitals there, I'd say the hospital care in Thailand is way, way better.

I was wondering if there's many farang women that have given birth in Thai hospitals. If so, only in Bangkok?? Not that I'm pregnant yet (but trying!), but I've had a quite a few traumatic experiences dealing with Thai hospitals/doctors as they tend to speak to my husband in Thai rather than try to explain to me. Would like to hear your experiences

Hi there... goog luck with the trying - I fell pregnant on our first "try" on my 40th birthday! We moved from Samui to Chiang Mai largely for the better hospitals. I had a reasonably good Thai female OB/GYN who spoke good English and endeavoured to answer all my questions right through. We nearly came unstuck over vitamin supplements with dangerous levels of red food colouring, but she came through that one OK in the end. 26 hours of easy natural labour in their natural birthing suite... and then... disaster. Rupturing uterous and emergency C section. We had definite issues with the supposedly excellent hospital (rather than the doctor) and I'd be happy to give you a "take care with these things" list if you (or anyone else) want to PM me. We survived the "your baby must have Downs Syndrome because you are soooo old and her ears are crooked" and gave in to the genetic testing in our shock - she was fine, just a croooked ear and dopey from the drugs post C section but 3 hellishly difficult days while we waited for the result. Had to fight to breastfeed her exclusively and we won in the end, but only thanks to my darling husband who finally taught her to suck on day 5 by trickling expressed milk patiently down the breast with an eyedropper (his own idea!) until she worked out how to lick it and eventually find more. Thinking of renting him out as a lactation consultant, by the way... My little girl will be 3 on Mother's Day (Aug 12) and we're planning to raise her here - she is already pretty fluent in both Thai and English and moderately OK in Thai Yai/Burmese (thanks to our diligent housemaid who doubles as our nanny and all the ladies at the local talaat).

Be in touch if I can help - we're pretty busy with our natural products export business but happy to make time for a fellow traveller on this exotic journey anytime.

No 2000 baht fee regularly? Well obviously incentive to go do that in person and not lose the 2000 baht extra to a lawyer. Ok, so if you're say 2 months overdue for your 90 day check in, can you just go to immigration and get it taken care of with a 2000 baht fine? And everything will be sorted out?

Damian

I was late with the 90 day reporting here in Chiang Mai two months ago - only 9 days due to my 2 year old daughter inadvertantly scribbling over the calendar. It took my Thai husband more than half an hour to talk them down to the minimum fine of 2,000. It can be up to 5,000 baht and the discretionary component has largely been removed, we were told. I think you might need to be prepared for more than 2,000 baht... We were also advised in future to register two weeks to 10 days prior to the actual 90 day date - if they can't process your registration form for whatever reason on that last day it is now a mandatory 2,000 baht - even for one day. Good luck...!

We are debating which hospital we should choose to have our baby delivered (we live in Pattaya) and would be grateful from any fathers out there who can shed some light on what questions to ask. We are happy with our doctor but he works from a number of places and we are finding it hard to evaluate them as they seem almost the same ?

What should we look for in a hospital ?

What about the pressure for caesarian ? We would like the baby to be born naturally if at all possible but we are aware of pressure being applied to accept a caesarian when there is no danger to the mother or baby only pressure on time and on the "profit" which can be made from a birth.

What questions should we ask and when ?

What should we prepare "in the bag" which we grab when we have to go to the hospital ?

What will the mother need in hospital both before birth and afterwards before discharge ?

What about epidurals ? Good / bad / indifferent ? Necessary ?

Why cannot you get a written price structure from hospitals ? They give vague answers then add on "potential" extras.

Please throw up your questions as well as your answers, comments and opinions. First time parents here need all the help we can get.

Sounds like you need to change doctors - and fast! All the questions you are asking should and will be answered by a good Thai Obstetrician. My baby was born here in Chiang Mai Ram #1 with the help of an excellent Thai female doctor - 26 hours of manageable natural labour (no drugs) went horribly wrong at the end (uterine rupture) and I then I needed an emergency "C" section - we had about 2 minutes to decide as we were both in serious danger. In the end, the whole week in hospital plus surgery plus a famly suite cost less than 40,000 baht. You also don't mention if the woman giving birth is farang or Thai - the expectations of what is "needed", questions etc tend to vary dramatically. Can only suggest you shop around for a new doctor/hospital and ask all your questions now - these kind of questions need firm, 100% correct answers and not stories about someone's wife's sister. Best of luck - you are on one of the most amazing and challenging journeys you will ever undertake!