Living In Thailand And Staying Healthy

[aussman]

I"ve been here 2 1/2 years...no stomach problems apart from Vientiene on a visa run...bad street food on a hot day. i wash everything including my teeth in town water and drink the 20lt delivered bottled water and buy all my meat, fruit and veges in the markets.

I think common sense works, eat where you see lots of thais eating ;wash your hands ; wash vegetables before eating/cooking. Drink at least 6 glasses of water a day, minimal air-con, easy on the booze and do regular exercise.

[kmart]

I eat and drink everything I can get my hands on and very, very rarely have stomach problems

You have a cast-iron stomach, david. I envy you.

I usually put toilet tissue in the fridge overnight. Can't remember my last firm stool.

What you need Mr K is to get your hands on some peanut butter, white bread and cheese ... that concoction will firm up the constitution of the most liquid of motions (even the infamous rice water stools) and may even bung up the orifice ...

That concoction was posted on another thread as foolproof fishing bait. Wish you guys would make your minds up!

[wilko]

I think a lot of people are unaware of the longer affects of jet-lag. I first became aware of them when I moved for UK to Oz...It took about 1 to 2 months for things like my sense of direction to return, I also noticed that my stomach took a while to settle. I firmly believe that this was not the change in diet but the change in calendar...time, season etc......we all have biological clocks and they take a while to switch round to the new regime.....maybe longer than we think.....

While you sleep, especially in the early hours of the morning, your guts usually go through the "housekeeper" phase....this involves quite a lot of churning of the bowels......if you change your sleeping habits dramatically this may not change so quickly and you'll find your body going into "housekeeper phase" in the middle of the day, resulting in all sorts of unpleasant rumblings and gurgles.....fine when you're asleep but a little embarrassing when awake....

[katana]

I think there's also a syndrome called 'bacterial overgrowth' that can cause diarrhoea problems in tropical climates. There's also tropical sprue to be considered, although this is very rare nowadays due to the ready availability of antibiotics, and it takes quite a while to develop it.

Edited February 19, 2007 by katana

[qwertz]

Not much mention of mental health here. LOS is just one place in the world where the fruitcakes of the world convene but most if not all of the classic Freudian syndromes are alive and well there. Men seem to suffer much more than women with loss of reality and going "troppo". LOS has more than its fair share of romancers and dreamers, it's the ideal refuge for deluded people. With the profusion of clinics there, I'm surprised at the relative scarcity of shrinks. There's such a thing as intellectual fodder too, which you won't find abundant in the bars and without it a brain can shrivel.

Too many farangs are victims of boredom - yes, it could happen to you, even in LOS - and boredom leads to all kinds of aberrant behaviour. At all costs, avoid farangs making offers you can't refuse. Unlike the Thais, they have actually begun to believe what they are saying (this latter comment does not of course refer to our august moderators, whose veracity I invariably praise to the heavens).

[oooooo]

Hi,

I recently lived 6 months in Bkk. Within this time I frequently felt nauseous, had diarrhea several time, and vomited, fever, officially diagnosed with food poisoning about 4 times and so on.

As it happens I suspect that I did have food poisoning and was misdiagnosed on some occasions when I actually was suffering with IBS/ low stomach acid brought on by food poisoning. Which in turn made be more susceptible to food poisoning. I also think going out too much, sleeping too little and placing undue stress on myself was all part of the equation.

But I digress....

Who here found it took their stomachs a long time to get accustomed to living in Thailand. Am I particularly unlucky? Or as I suspect do a fair number of people take quite a while of being ill before then beginning to become ok?

Since I would like to live in Bangkok for a long time, I would like to do some long term experiences.

Thanks!

unfortunately the state of hygene and sanitation here is rather poor. fifteen years ago i had transferred here to work for a five-star property as the Dir F&B. within a few weeks i realised that our standards of sanitation lived up to about something like a roadside soup stall. following that i set out to devise a brand new hygene and sanitation program which i discussed with senior colleagues working at other hotels in bkk, most of whom had spent a considerable amount of time in this country.

the general consensus became clear real quick, the message was: dont try to implement any of your action plan as that would only result in employees leaving ur operation. "just let them do it their way" "leave them to it" etc etc. fine fine i said and left it at that.

i worked there for two years and nobody ever complained of being seriously ill although gross violations had taken place.

the net result of all this is ur body adjusts to something that is called bacterial load. that means the more bacteria u ingest the stronger ur immune system becomes. a lot of stomach problems encountered by foreigners in thailand are also caused by being unaccustomed with ingredients used solely in the preparation of thai foods.

i myself took about 3-4 mths to get fully adjusted. and yet from time to time i get the runs in a bad way.

it also amuses me that my wife will always wipe our plates and cutlery with tissue prior to eating. when i ask her about it she says that those items are not clean. and i says, darling ur just spreading the bacteria around. lol. that's the way it is.

good luck and happy eating!