News Forum - Holiday nightmare: British citizen stranded in Thai hospital with a 400,000 baht plea to escape

[Manu]

On 12/1/2023 at 1:01 PM, PhuketBloke said:

Sorry to hear that.

I asked as I returned to England after I had been here a year a few years ago.

I had unimaginable pain in my arms, legs, and shoulders, my white cell count was over the top and I was losing a kg every few days.

Initially, the doctors in the UK suspected it was bone cancer due to other factors so I had a full MRI scan and all sorts of tests and it was all negative.

I was living on very strong painkillers for a few months and then it all went away, we never found out the reason.

I went back to 'normal'.

It is the reason I asked about Dengue fever symptoms. 

Do you remember if you had pain behind your eyes? I have had it twice and the first time, this one was the worse pain to me amongst all the ones you are describing, a VERY VERY bad flu kind of symptoms. I was in bed for 4 days, it took me 3 weeks to completely recover, I was about 45 with a decent immune system but it knocked me down. The second time I had similar symptoms but only for 1 day bad, I was fine after 4/5 days. The one thing in common though is that it came both times totally of all a suden, one minute I was fine, the next one I was down.

[Tippaporn]

On 12/1/2023 at 11:05 AM, Mamachigawa said:

Yes. Heated seat, heated water, air dry. 

Too rich for my blood.  The below + left hand + evaporation.  Allows you to feel whether or not you've got it all off.  

Edited December 3, 2023 by Tippaporn

[Lowseasonlover]

3 hours ago, Manu said:

Do you remember if you had pain behind your eyes? I have had it twice and the first time, this one was the worse pain to me amongst all the ones you are describing, a VERY VERY bad flu kind of symptoms. I was in bed for 4 days, it took me 3 weeks to completely recover, I was about 45 with a decent immune system but it knocked me down. The second time I had similar symptoms but only for 1 day bad, I was fine after 4/5 days. The one thing in common though is that it came both times totally of all a suden, one minute I was fine, the next one I was down.

One day I was fine it was like I woke up with it as I tried to get up out of bed I fell back down I couldn't stand up I lay in bed for while more until I was able to stand, By that time I was full of it, even my wife could see, I had an idea it was dengue again.

I didn't have pain in my eyes just very dry, I kind of knew what it was but my wife insisted we go hospital, I fell asleep in the coffee shop while waiting for the results, I didn't stay in the hospital this time I went home,

Since I have a pain in the small of my back it feels more like a nerve, it's not a mussel, the nerve pain shoots down my leg in the night and wakes me up, the other night I got up to move around a bit, it's limiting my mobility I cant walk far, I went down the beach the other morning I had to walk back to the car, although today it is better, 

[Manu]

32 minutes ago, Lowseasonlover said:

One day I was fine it was like I woke up with it as I tried to get up out of bed I fell back down I couldn't stand up I lay in bed for while more until I was able to stand, By that time I was full of it, even my wife could see, I had an idea it was dengue again.

I didn't have pain in my eyes just very dry, I kind of knew what it was but my wife insisted we go hospital, I fell asleep in the coffee shop while waiting for the results, I didn't stay in the hospital this time I went home,

Since I have a pain in the small of my back it feels more like a nerve, it's not a mussel, the nerve pain shoots down my leg in the night and wakes me up, the other night I got up to move around a bit, it's limiting my mobility I cant walk far, I went down the beach the other morning I had to walk back to the car, although today it is better, 

It sounds like you got a nice one too. Although symptoms seem to differ slightly from person to person, the thing in common though is that it knocks you down regardless. In others words, you feel like s***!

When I got it first time, I actually never heard of dengue fever (what a lovely way to find out). It happened to be a year where there was quite a big epidemic in Thailand and neighbouring countries, about 8 years ago (I discovered that once I knew I had dengue). There was also a lot of public awareness nationwide after some Thai actor died from it. ( https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/830360/actor-por-dies-after-10-weeks-in-coma - scary, isn't it?). I then also found out that it is also called the "broken-bone fever": I am pretty certain that everyone who gets it understand very well why.

The ironical thing is that I actually very rarely get beaten by mosquitoes, they do not like me very much it seems. Well, at least 2 that carried that lovely dengue virus had a different opinion.

[Lowseasonlover]

After 23 years of living here I rarely get bitten, the ones to watch out for are the Asian tiger ones black and white stripes, look like they have on steroids'

Ive taken a few precautions I bought a couple of them ultra violet lamps I can plug them around the house, for the first time in 10 years my little office at the back of the house has aback door i fitted mozzie nets I used to leave the door open all the time, and couple of them plug in gadgets, some protection,  

[Marc26]

16 hours ago, Lowseasonlover said:

After 23 years of living here I rarely get bitten, the ones to watch out for are the Asian tiger ones black and white stripes, look like they have on steroids'

Ive taken a few precautions I bought a couple of them ultra violet lamps I can plug them around the house, for the first time in 10 years my little office at the back of the house has aback door i fitted mozzie nets I used to leave the door open all the time, and couple of them plug in gadgets, some protection,  

It really is surprising they don't use screens on the doors/windows here 

 

We bought our house and I had my wife call and they put screens in all the doors and windows

[drchao]

thai govt should require every
tourists to buy health insurance
or contribute to a broad fund
set up by the govt for this
purpose. There are always
news that Thai public health
system spent too much on
foreigners or default withouT
settling the bill after treatment. which led to immigratioN required OA retirees to buY mandatory healtH insurance, however, this particular case shows that mandatory insurance for retirees simplily could not help govt to reduce public health expense, but the retirees suffer due to extremely high insurance fee (comes with old age) and the exclusion on pre conditions and all illness thaT may arise from pre conditions, but are retirees more susceptible  to the latter illness than other new medical problems, for example, if common healtH priblems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and chlestrol are all excluded from protection, maybe the health insurance only useful for some cancers such as lung cancer or PSA problem?

[PhuketBloke]

43 minutes ago, drchao said:

thai govt should require every
tourists to buy health insurance
or contribute to a broad fund
set up by the govt for this
purpose. There are always
news that Thai public health
system spent too much on
foreigners or default withouT
settling the bill after treatment. which led to immigratioN required OA retirees to buY mandatory healtH insurance, however, this particular case shows that mandatory insurance for retirees simplily could not help govt to reduce public health expense, but the retirees suffer due to extremely high insurance fee (comes with old age) and the exclusion on pre conditions and all illness thaT may arise from pre conditions, but are retirees more susceptible  to the latter illness than other new medical problems, for example, if common healtH priblems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and chlestrol are all excluded from protection, maybe the health insurance only useful for some cancers such as lung cancer or PSA problem?

I am retired here in Phuket and I do not have to buy mandatory health insurance. 

That was the case last year when I extended my visa for the first time for one year and it is the same situation when I extend it again next year.