Bad Experience At Skin Hospital Bangkok

[seoweb2000]

Below is what happened at the New Skin Hospital Bangkok Asoke Rd

Illness: minor rash

I went in for a minor rash and after taking the medication my rash developed into blisters on my hands and feet. I went back again and was given the same meds and told that it was an allegric reaction to something I ate. After several more days of pain and swelling, I decided to check on Google and I found some pics that were similar to my condition.

It turn out what I had call a drug ruption, simply a severe negative reaction to the meds that I was taking. I went in for an emergecy check up and told the (doctor) about what I had found. His reaction was extremely unprofessional. He told me to stick with the meds that he had prescribed. He failed to do any type of skin test nor blood test. Even when there was a case similiar( the same medication caused severe skin problems) to mine documented, where a skin test was needed to confirm the drug ruption. I even gave him the website address.

I told him that I would discontined the current meds and request new ones. his reply was to stick to the current meds and he got defensive about it. He even told me that I would regret my decision. At this point I decided to leave and not come back.

I did discontinued the meds and with a day the swelling was down. And it was been three days and my condition is almost back to normal.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Sheryl
explained in moderator's post

[flemmie]

Thanks for this warning.

[MegaRanter]

You could have asked to see another doctor at the same hospital and raise your concerns with him. I usually would not feel very comfortable being in a hospital that is built to deal with just one disease. Sometimes I see two different doctors, the first refers to the second, or calls him on the intercom for advice. Bumrum..... at soi 3 has a good skin clinic too.

[george]

Topic set invisible pending moderation.

[Sheryl]

Some minor edits have been made (including removal of doctor's name -- if you want it, PM the OP) as defamation laws in Thailand are draconian.

What is described is, in my experience, extremely common in Thailand and in no way unusual to a particular doctor or hospital. In fact, I have yet to encounter a Thai doctor who was sensitized to drug allergies as a potential complication of therapy. My sister has multiple drug allergies so I run into this a lot, and it is very, very frustrating.

Doctors worldwide tend, in my experience, to be insufficiently alert to adverse reactions to medications but Thai doctors for some reason are especially so and seem to be virtually "tone deaf" when it comes to allergic reactions. Possibly these are rarer among Thais than among other populations, I don't know. But indeed everyone needs to be aware of this pitfall and to not hesitate to insist on discontinuing a medication that they feel they have had an allergic response to, or to refuse to take one they have been allergic to in the past. Never rely on having given your allergy history as in my experience even the "best" hospitals fail to refer to it. Can't begin to count how many times I have seen doctors prescribe, and nurses attemopt to administer, drugs that the patient was allergic to despite clear posting of that information on both chart and ID tage.

[Sheryl]

TV has been contacted by the doctor in question who offered his side of the story. According to the doctor, the medication prescribed was an anti-histamine, based on the diagnosis of an allergic rash. He thus considered it very unlikely that the worsening of the rash was due to the medication, and rather suspected that it was just a worsening of the initial allergy. Allergic reactions do vary in the timing of their onset and duration of the response.

The physician was of the impression he had explained this to the patient and offered him the options of either changing to a different antihistamine or continuing with the current one and waitng tio see if matters improved.