I Need A Ct Scan!

[lordsux]

I have just got out of Phyathai hospital after 2 days of tests, blood, urine, xrays, ultrasound and MRI. I discharged myself, one because of lack of funds and the other reason is that I felt I was being given the falang run around. (I live virtually next door to the hospital so should my condition deteriorate I can be there in minutes)

I need a good 'cheap' hospital in BKK to get a CT scan, so hopefully I can get a final diagnosis. Phyathai diagnosed a kidney stone in my left kidney and a spine infection. What is yet to be diagnosed is the 'mass' that is attached to my right kidney which can clearly be seen on the MRI scans. I need a CT scan and I am now on very limited funds.

Any recommendations?

[mikethevigoman]

I have just got out of Phyathai hospital after 2 days of tests, blood, urine, xrays, ultrasound and MRI. I discharged myself, one because of lack of funds and the other reason is that I felt I was being given the falang run around. (I live virtually next door to the hospital so should my condition deteriorate I can be there in minutes)

I need a good 'cheap' hospital in BKK to get a CT scan, so hopefully I can get a final diagnosis. Phyathai diagnosed a kidney stone in my left kidney and a spine infection. What is yet to be diagnosed is the 'mass' that is attached to my right kidney which can clearly be seen on the MRI scans. I need a CT scan and I am now on very limited funds.

Any recommendations?

you will have to travel but i had one at sattahip navy hospital, 1800 baht, superb care and people there, i will never waste my money on a posh name and "retail " hospital again, .

[gunnyd]

I am not familiar with the healthcare system of your home country, but if you have decent medical insurance/socialized medicine, then you may want to seriously think about returning home. If you do have a serious problem (it sounds like it) you may be better off at home.

A CT Scan is just a diagnostic tool. Most likely you will need surgical intervention, which can become very costly very fast.

The RN from AZ GunnyD

[lordsux]

Yes, my intentions are to go to europe as soon as I get a visa for my girlfriend, soon to be wife. My economy has crashed, but can still get by.

My main need right now is a wheelchair, because unfortunately it looks as though I might be needing it for a while,

I want to get out of BKK. and a friend has offered to pay for my gf and I to go to pattaya with him. Will probably leave all my scans and documents at the Navy Hospital and make an appointment that we will come back to bangkok.

Great tip mikethevigoman, I will follow up on that.

[mikethevigoman]

Yes, my intentions are to go to europe as soon as I get a visa for my girlfriend, soon to be wife. My economy has crashed, but can still get by.

My main need right now is a wheelchair, because unfortunately it looks as though I might be needing it for a while,

I want to get out of BKK. and a friend has offered to pay for my gf and I to go to pattaya with him. Will probably leave all my scans and documents at the Navy Hospital and make an appointment that we will come back to bangkok.

Great tip mikethevigoman, I will follow up on that.

please do, speaking as i find i was treated superbly and the thai nurses etc liked to practice there english on you, i could tell ,..i was very ill and was made to feel at ease and made a full recovery,i wish you luck and please keep us posted,

[Sheryl]

Queen Sirikit Naval Hospital is a good bet in terms of affordability, may not be so good in terms of communication (language plus willingness to explain in detail, farang-style). Another affordable option is St Louis Hospital on Sathorn, it is non-profit. Whereever you go, bring all test results with you.

Cheapest of all would be a government hospital but you cannot just go in and ask for a CT scan, many bearucratic hurdles to jump first and can take literally days to finally meet a specialist with the authority to order a scan, and then there is likely to be a wait to have it done...you get the idea.

I find what you say you were told to be confusing to say the least. If you wanty furthwr advice, please clarify:

What type of "spine infection"??? Is it osteomyelitis? Because if so you need a long course of IV antibiotics starting as soon as possible.

What is the size of the mass on the kidney (small cysts are of no importance)?

is your kidney stone symptomatic? (pain, bloody urine)?

what exactly is it they want to do the CT for? There are not many things that are seen better on a CT than on an MRI...but perhaps the CT is being recommended for a different part of the body than the MRI was done on? I assume the MRI was of the spine, and the CT is operhaps being recommended for the kidney?? Or vice versa?

I am asking all this because am I not so sure that getting a CT scan is necessarily a priority for you at this point but can't really say without more information.

If you do indeed have veretebral osteomyselitis, on the other hand, starting antibiotics is a top priority, and they'll need to be given intravenously although it might be possible to come in daily as an outpatient for it if they use a long-acting antibiotic (saves a lot of money).

[lordsux]

Thank you for your concern.... the past week has been a nightmare, but I'm still smiling Below is an attempt at describing my current condition:

"'Well guys and girls, this is not a very happy story, but please read on.

I have spent the last 3 days in hospital here in Bangkok, Thailand. I have so far a partial diagnosis of what is wrong with me, this is what the doctors and specialists have found so far, results are after 2 days of tests including blood, urine, xrays, ultrasound and MRI scans that I have:

Left kidney - stones (yeah, its true its the closest a man can come to feeling labour pains)

Right kidney - Suspected isoechoic mass at midpole of right kidney.(this means that there is something hitching a ride on my kidney without paying for the gas) as of yet, the hitcher is still to be identified.

Now, we can move on to my spine, many people have said that I have a very sexy back, some have said that I have a backbone similar to that of an eel, not to mention those that have said that I have no backbone at all. I like the 'sexy back" bit the best. Dont you?

Anyway my 'sexy back' which has served me very well for nearly forty years in spite of several major accidents, a few brutal attacks and many minor inflictions has decided to degenerate on me (yes,I have been learning big words in the hospital) anyway, this degeneration is not a hitcher, its a lodger!

Lodgers are worse than hitchers, but only sometimes! The way that lodgers can be worse than hitchers is the way that sometimes they decide that under no circumstances are they going to leave the premises.

Yesterday I found out that I have a couple of these little buggers lodged into the bottom of my spine, I thought that they were just squatters and would move on after they had rested, fed and cleaned themselves up. I should have forced them out earlier, but being such a nice guy I thought that I would give them some time....Im a charitable guy like that But heh, the bastards have lodged themselves very tight and will never come out again, not only that they are having a munch on my discs and at the same time trying to force my disks out of their rightfull homes.

Bloody hel_l, to really take the piss, (which my girlfriend, fiance,wife-take your pick!) literally has had to do for me the last few days, the squatters turned 'lodged lodgers' liked my 'sexy back' so much that they even put names on their doors L4/5 and his neighbour L5/S1. Despite this fact it has taken me a log time to find them.

L4/5 is one of those pretty quiet lodgers, a dream lodger one could say (havn't seen any rent money yet though grrr!!. But when L4/5 throws a party he is all my nightmares rolled into one and implanted into my aching brain in ultrasupermulti surround sound Omnimax format. L4/5 sleeps a lot and I try all a can not to wake him, but usually every hour or so, he will remind me that he is party animal number 1. L4/5 is flexing his muscles and trying to strengthen his already cemented footing by using the 'stenosis' technique. Although a tough cookie, L4/5 could learn a lot from his neighbor and Lord of the Manor L5/S1. But hats off for L4/5's choice of locations for his deployment of stenosis to the lower proximal bilateral neuroforamina could be L4/5's ace. Crafty little blighter

L5/S1, it has I nice cling to my ears, repeat the name several times and you will find that your lips are making a nice kissing shape. (told you so ) now this is the only thing good about L5/S1! I think that the 'S' in the name stands for Satan who as we know is the devil, take away the d and you have evil, turn it around and you have live. (you can even spell Levis if you add the dam_n 'S') maybe its a conspiracy, but there again I lost my Levis collection along with almost everything else I possesed at that time some years ago.

L5/S1 has the patent on pain not normal pain, but what would you expect from the evil devil dressed in Levis?,. Not only is he partying almost 24/7 he is disrupting the whole area, 'bringing the neighborhood down' so to say. This devilish evil without Levi's that has come to live with me has also decided to show his form in the 'stenosis' department by marking his terittory and beyond. Add a touch of 'central focal disc herniation', a dash of 'marked stenosis of the right lateral recess' a pinch of 'right compression of S1 traversing nerve root, serve shaken, but not stired and you have the perfect pain producing power plant. Oh, dam_n I forgot the decoration........never forget the details dammit!!.....the decoration consists of 'neuroforamina stenosis'. which is like as far as understand from my crash course of body parts in latin thai style, broken english and thai interpretations, a bit of finger pointing bla bla bla and and medical jargonology (maybe thats a new word?) plus a few visual aides such as MRI, ultrasound and a series of normal x-rays and voila you have a cocktail from the dark side of mother nature that could cripple an oversized elephant given half a chance.

So far L5/S1 has stripped me of about 70% mobility in my right leg from my hip down after it showed me its special party trick, it's an invisible trick that involves the feeling of acid or molten metal being poured slowly down the inside of ones leg. The pain is blinding white pain, I want to scream but L5/S1 doesn't let me, now the flow has ceased and 'started to stop' (I love that expression) My leg is still burning like hel_l on a hot summers day, but now my foot is stuck to the pavement, in fact my foot has frozen to the pavement. I can see nothing between my shoe and the scorching slab of concrete under it. I try to move forward but my leg exploded into another display of its power and sent shockwaves through every cell in my body, even the neighbour L4/5 quaked at the sheer power he had lodged himself next to. They have become allies and could be planning another full on assault similar to the attack last tuesday. Rumour has it that together the have formed a new group called the 'Sciatica'! is a set of symptoms including pain that may be caused by general compression and/or irritation of one of five nerve roots that give rise to the sciatic nerve, or by compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve itself. The pain is felt in the lower back, buttock, and/or various parts of the leg and foot. In addition to pain, which is sometimes severe, there may be numbness, muscular weakness, and difficulty in moving or controlling the leg. Typically, the symptoms are only felt on one side of the body.Psssst!!!! it's more than just a rumour, but tell anyone.

I don't know why I am writing this...I dont know if I will continue to write this, but while writing this and doing a bit of research at the same time, my undestanding of my condition has made me better prepared for the road that may lay ahead, writing this has taken my mind off of the mass on my right kidney. I have always chosen the long hard road on my travels and in my life and have taken a lot of wrong turns to get to where I am. My lifestyle probably laid the tarmac for this road that has now been chosen for me to travel and to explore the first turn is going to be the CT scan that I need for the final part of my diagnosis. Wish me luck!

I hope that this road to somewhere is long and winding and full of things to slow down the journey and hope get the oportunity to take many many more wrong turns in my life.......really I do I deserve them and thats my style)

Hope to see you on the road!"

I hope to get back to the EU in about a weeks time and start treatment there.... I have a wheelchair now, but that is pretty much useless here in BKK, but thats another story in itself.

'keep on rollin'

[Sheryl]

From what I can gather, then, you do not have a spinal infection but rather spinal stenosis and perhaps some herniation of discs. You will need extensive physical therapy and possibly surgery, so get back home as soon as possible.

[lordsux]

A bit of good news to brighten things up a bit!

Today my girlfriend and I got married at Sathorn District office. Her birthday, and exactly 1 year to the day that we met. Easy to remember for me

Looks like a found a diamond in the coal mine.

The 2 discs have herniation and have degenerated so surgery is a must. As soon as the visa is approved for my wife we will fly to Europe