Trying to Understand is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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I’m not one of those folks who gets off bashing everything they don’t understand about Thailand and the Thai people but I had two questions I’ve yet to receive a satisfactory response to. They’re not meant to be insulting. I just really would love if someone could explain this to me.

Headaches

Thailand has to be the migraine headache capital of the world. Or maybe I just happen to attract people who have a propensity for them. Seriously though, I’ve never met so many people in such a small sample size that complain that they suffer from migraines. And I’m not talking about the run of the mill headache here. I’ve had more Thai women tell me that they’ve been hospitalized for headaches than anywhere else in the world.

According to some websites on migraines I’ve checked out they say that about 16% of all people will experience at least one migraine over the course of their life. Some will have a migraine headache multiple times over their life but most only have one. Based on that, what are the odds that out of say 100 Thai women I know, AT LEAST 10 (probably closer to 12 or 13 but it’s not like I keep stats) have told me they’ve been hospitalized with a migraine headache during the time I’ve known them. Given that I’ve probably known the girls in the sample an average of less than one year, what kind of amazing odds would there have to be that 10% have all had a migraine in that short of a period?

I can already hear some people chuckling saying that maybe it’s an excuse (oh, not tonight honey, I have a headache haha). But why? I mean, if some girl you haven’t spoken to in a month hits you up and you ask how she’s been and she tells you she’s been in the hospital with headaches for 3 days what point was her to make up a story? I have to believe she’s being honest.

I don’t think it’s environmental because I’ve heard it from girls living in Krabi, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai, and various parts of Isaan.

Am I just running into some freakish statistical anomaly? Do Thais really do suffer from more headaches than most people? Do they carry more stress around as a result of the whole mai ben rai attitude?

Anybody who can shed some light on this care to comment?

Buddhism and Meditation

Maybe this is related to the above question but I recently started asking every Thai friend I run into whether or not they meditate. So far I’ve received 80% no and 20% seldom. But don’t Buddhism and meditation go hand in hand?

I mean, some of these folks are the type who wai every spirit house, temple, and shrine they pass. Some wear big Buddha amulets for good luck, good health, etc. Many regularly go to temple and make merit.

But they don’t mediate.

I’m not passing judgement. I’m well aware that not every Christian goes to church every Sunday, every Muslim doesn’t abstain from booze, and not every Jew holds off on pork. I’m just curious. Because if you ask a Christian why he doesn’t go to church he can probably articulate his reasons. Same for the Jews and Muslims. But when I ask why Thais don’t meditate I’ve gotten answers ranging from “I’m not a monk,” to simply a blank stare as if the question itself was stupid.

I know that Thais don’t practice the most strict form of Buddhism and have a lot of other influences on their take on the religion but when you think of Buddhism you think of meditation.

I don’t even have any theories on this one. I’m completely clueless. Anybody who can shed some light on this for me gets some karma points from me

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A Brush With Herpes is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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I will warn you ahead of time that I am going to be fairly graphic in this post so those of you with weak stomachs may want to browse away.

I consider myself to be a lucky guy. I’ve never had a broken bone. I’ve never had any major medical problems. And while I’m no great physical specimen that women drool over, I’m in pretty decent shape for a middle-aged guy.

Then one evening I noticed a bit of sensitivity in my groin area. I was sitting home watching television and every time I shifted position my groin just felt a little strange. I’m not sure how describe it. It was feeling I wasn’t used to.

I went into the bathroom and pulled down my shorts and gave myself an inspection. Grouped around the base of my penis were several blisters. I call them blisters for lack of a better term because they weren’t like the blisters you get on your feet or hands from too much friction and yet they were nothing like pimples or zits that you get on your face or other parts of your body. Perhaps they were somewhere in between.

I can’t really describe the feeling that shoots through a man’s body when something is wrong with his penis but it is like an electrical charge that travels from the feet to the brain. The heart speeds up, hands become cold and clammy, and you can actually notice the increase and shallowness of your breathing.

I gave these “blisters” a closer inspection and started touching and prodding them. They were tender but not really painful. One specific one was engorged with fluid underneath the skin and I squeezed it. Out came a watery puss onto my fingers. I cleaned my hand off and squeezed another and another hoping that just like a zit that once you had gotten the offending object out from under the skin it would heal and everything would be just fine.

After popping all of the blisters that would pop I cleaned up and ran to my computer to do searches on phrases like “genital blisters”, “genital skin conditions”, and “genital sores.” I’m sure some readers will have no problem guessing that trusty old Google kept returning pages pertaining to genital herpes.

I was shocked. I was mortified. I’ve always practiced safe sex. How could I have genital herpes?

I dug into several herpes sites and found some comfort in the fact that I didn’t seem to exhibit all of the classic symptoms. I had no fever, no body aches, the sores were sensitive to the touch but not burning in sensation. But at the same time I was aware I was looking for ways to deny that I had contracted herpes so there was a battle going on in my mind.

I began looking at pictures of herpes and again found some comfort that my blisters hadn’t become ulcers like most of the photos. In fact, my blisters looked very different. And they didn’t merge together like they did in many of the photos to become super-ulcers.

I couldn’t sleep well that night. I kept thinking about what my life would be like if I actually had herpes. I tossed and turned and would go out to the living room and look up more herpes sites on the internet and try to convince myself that I couldn’t have herpes.

I thought about all of the women I had slept with recently. What really didn’t sit well in my mind were a few instances. First was a girl I had been with and during the act I heard the dreaded “Uh oh.” I asked what was wrong and she told me the condom broke. Was that it? Did that bitch give me herpes?

Another incident that concerned me was a late night out drinking and I woke up the next morning not even remembering having picked up this girl. I rolled over in bed and there she was. Who she was or how she got there I don’t really know. She was naked and there were used condom wrappers on the floor so I assume we had one or two session before passing out but I can’t really say I remember them so there’s no way to be sure that safe sex was practiced rigidly or that the durability of the condom itself wasn’t compromised.

I don’t normally do the black-out fuck session so I felt bad about it at the time and I was feeling even worse about it knowing that I might have gotten herpes as a result of it. Images (or lack thereof) of those nights kept replaying in my head every time I tried to calm myself down and sleep.

The next morning I carefully examined myself in the mirror again. All of the blisters I had popped did not refill with fluid and had begun to heal like a normal break in the skin with a crusty scab. Again, no ulcers so I was beginning to think maybe I just had an allergic reaction to a condom or lubricant or some cunt I had slept with had a nasty cooche that had irritated the skin.

I can’t say I forgot about it but I put it in the back of my mind and decided that I would start becoming concerned only if the blisters didn’t heal normally or if they ulcerated in any way.

I went on like that for a week. I was actually starting to feel foolish for having been so worried.

On Thursday night I felt really tired. I hadn’t slept well the night before but this was like a really drained tired. I wasn’t sleepy per se but more like I had no energy.

That’s another herpes symptom checkbox. I didn’t sleep well that night.

Friday, I started to run a fever. Again I tried to convince myself that it was a coincidence because I was starting to come down with a chest cold (actually mild bronchitis), which I normally get about once a year due to my love of cigarettes. Just walking to the BTS had me drenched in sweat so I decided to stay in and get some rest.

I showered before bed and as I stood there nude in the mirror I noticed something strange on my inner right thigh. I raised my leg onto the bathroom sink so I could see what was going on and my inner thigh was covered with red blisters.

FUCK!!!!!

I couldn’t ignore this any longer. Something was wrong. I had to go see a doctor.

On Saturday morning I went to the clinic on Sukhumvit Soi 11. It’s a place hidden away (which is a good thing) on that little sub-soi where Cheap Charlie’s and Charlie Brown’s are near the 7-11.

There was another guy in the waiting room when I arrived. He was an older guy maybe in his early sixties. I asked the receptionist if I could have some blood work done. She asked what tests I wanted and I wasn’t really sure. She gave me a massive form with all of the blood tests they could run and I started checking off the usual HIV type tests.

The guy who was in the waiting area was called into the back by the blood sample technician and I asked the receptionist if there was a doctor available. She said that there was and I asked if I could see him because I had a rash that I wanted him to look at.

She took the blood form from me and told me to take a seat. Less than a minute later she directed me into the doctor’s office and I explained my symptoms to him. He asked to drop my pants so he could inspect the blisters and I complied.

He put on rubber gloves and pulled out a flashlight as he proceeded to push, poke, and examine my cock and inner thigh.

As doctors are prone to do he gave off no signs of whether what he was seeing was good or bad as he asked questions like “Is this sensitive or does it sting?”

When he was done with his examination and after I had pulled my pants back on and sat back down in the chair he said that stinging is usually associated with herpes while sensitivity is normally just some sort of bacterial infection.

While that was somewhat of a relief he ripped that hope out of my hands though by saying that he really couldn’t tell if the blisters were herpes or not.

He asked if I had experienced any flu like symptoms. Yes, I had. He started jotting notes on my file. He asked me to describe when they started versus the timeline of the rash starting on my penis and then migrating to my thighs. I told him everything in detail almost trying to convince him that it couldn’t be herpes because I got the blisters on my dick a week before the flu-like symptoms started. And I get this type of thing about once a year so it’s probably not even related. Just a coincidence, right doc?

When he was done gathering his diagnostic data he told me that it’s likely that it’s a simple bacterial infection BUT (and there’s always a but) he needs to rule out herpes because it’s an infectious disease and I have some symptoms that worry him. FUCK!!!

He prescribed me two different antibiotic pills that had to be taken three times a day and an ointment that needed to be applied three times a day. Simple enough.

He also wanted to take a blood sample and told me that the results would be ready on Monday.

I was escorted out of his office and into another room where a nice young Thai lady was waiting with a needle. Without prompting I rolled up my sleeve, let her apply a tourniquet, and started flexing my fist to get the vein to pop up. When she saw me pumping my fist she asked, “This isn’t your first time?” I smiled and said, “I used to draw blood when I worked in medicine. I know how this works.”

She was efficient and found the vein on the first try. She drew several cc’s of blood in a hypodermic needle and transferred the blood into a sample vial. She gave me a band-aid and told me to go to the waiting room.

Total bill for the exam, blood tests, and a week’s worth of antibiotics was 1700 baht.

Now all I had to do was take my medicine and wait until 6pm on Monday. Oh if it were only that easy.

I couldn’t sleep Saturday night. I couldn’t sleep Sunday night. By Monday I was already resigned to the fact that I might have herpes. I began thinking about how you would tell a serious partner that you have herpes. Would Thais even get the fact that it has no real serious side effects other than the annoying (and painful) blisters that crop up a few times a year? Would they understand that the longer you have herpes the less they appear?

Oh who the fuck was I fooling? I had a girlfriend back home who sprung it on me that she had herpes and I couldn’t dump her fast enough. She was damaged goods. She had some disease inside of her that could be transmitted to me unless I was willing to wear a condom every time we fucked. Who wants that?

Monday came and I had an appointment that I couldn’t miss nearby on Sukhumvit at 6pm so I stopped in the clinic at 5:30. The courier hadn’t arrived with the results yet so the doctor called the blood lab and asked for the results.

He then asked me to step into his office. FUCK!!!!

He asked me to drop my pants again and out came the rubber gloves and the flashlight as he poked and prodded around my privates again.

When he was done he asked if I had noticed any change since taking the antibiotics. I told him that the rash on the inner thigh cleared up almost immediately other than the largest blisters. He gave me the standard “hmmmm.”

After scribbling in my records for a bit he looked up and said, “Well, the test for herpes came back negative. And it appears that the antibiotics are showing to be effective in clearing up your spots. You should have enough to last you for a full week’s treatment so I want you to keep taking them and come back and see me if the condition has not improved. “

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!

Postmortem

I decided to share this experience with you because Thailand is a great place but it’s also dangerous. Broken condoms can happen. Drunken sex can happen. Hell, you don’t even know if some crazy Thai girl won’t bite a small hole in the top of your condom so she can have some half-half babies.

I’m still not sure how I got whatever infection it is that I got but I’m so relieved that it isn’t something incurable like herpes. You don’t want to spend your days and nights worrying about whether or not you have herpes or HIV or whatever. It’s not fun. It’s stressful. Even if everything comes back negative you’ve still added some wrinkles to your face, some grey hairs, and bags under your eyes.

Be careful.

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Yoga Practitioner in Bangkok Park is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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Posted by Voicu Mihnea Simandan

Not so long ago I wrote about the benefits of archery. Today, we will briefly look at some of the health benefits of yoga. The pictures were taken in one of the many parks in Bangkok.

Yoga increases body flexibility.

Yoga keeps your joints, ligaments and tendons in good condition.

Yoga helps with detoxification.

Yoga makes your muscles strong.

Voicu Mihnea Simandan is a Romanian expat who has been living and working in Thailand since 2002. He is the author of “The Ironman. A Play”, a book for children well-received in educational circles.

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Where is the AIDS/HIV in Thailand? is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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I want to start off this post with a very strong disclaimer: The goal of this post is not to minimize the risks of unprotected sex in any way. The goal is to look at facts and attempt to determine what is true and what is a myth in regards to AIDS/HIV in Thailand. Wear a condom. Always!

With that out of the way, let me give you some background. I’ve been reading various websites over the years and the people constantly mention the high HIV infection rate, especially in girls involved in prostitution. At the same time, Stickman has been quoted as saying that a large number of people he knows engage in unsafe sex (I believe I remember reading he said it was close to 50%). Rumors abound that many working girls will go without a condom for an extra tip. Stick also warns that there are several girls who are well known to be HIV positive and are still working.

If all of this is true; why isn’t there an AIDS/HIV epidemic in the farang community? With the amount of sex that goes on in Patpong, Soi Cowboy, Nana, Pattaya, Patong, and so on why are there so few stories about large numbers of farang men testing positive for HIV?

Now some might claim that the Thai authorities keep it hushed up or that someone who tests HIV positive isn’t likely to broadcast their status to all their friends. But that doesn’t explain why large numbers of men aren’t simply dropping out of the Thailand scene never to be heard from again as their AIDS begins to take hold. Surely people would notice this trend and comment on it, no? Nor does it explain why US, UK, other European, and Australian health officials aren’t sounding a loud bell warning the world about a large spike in cases from tourists recently returned from Thailand.

I don’t mean to propose that people aren’t contracting HIV in Thailand. I’m just asking why the societal impacts don’t seem to match up to the risk being reported.

First off, not everything may be as it seems. Do a large number of women go with farangs without requiring a condom? I don’t think anybody is ever going to be able to do reliable stats on that but my anecdotal evidence is that I’ve met not a single go-go dancer or bar girl who will let you party without a hat. I’ll even joke around and ask how much and not a one ever went for any reasonable offer (up to 1000 baht extra – over that and I guess people will do anything for money but I doubt few regulars to the scene are shelling out that kind of cash per session). By the way, I ask them both for educational purposes and to weed out anyone who would.

Of course my evidence is anecdotal as is Stick’s and others who make this claim so the only thing we can take away from this is maybe I’m too optimistic and the others are too pessimistic and the truth lies somewhere between.

Likewise I don’t know anybody who has ever told me they like to sleep with bargirls without protection. I’m sure some of my friends have done it from time to time or might make a habit out of it but they’ve never discussed it with me. Again, I think my anecdotal evidence runs the opposite end of the spectrum from others so somewhere between our two groups of friends must be the norm.

Lastly, when we see all of these numbers published about HIV/AIDS in Thailand and especially when the numbers concern women engaged in prostitution there is no distinction made between farang prostitution and Thai prostitution which may give misleading numbers. Just due to the sex education available to farangs back home they are far, far less likely to have sex without a condom than say a Thai army conscript who is losing his virginity in a brothel. For that and many other reasons (such as better outreach programs and regular testing) I think it would be safe to assume that sex workers servicing Thai clients are much more likely to contract and spread HIV than those servicing farang customers. So when you hear numbers being thrown around like “X% of Thai sex workers are HIV positive” it doesn’t necessarily mean that that X% of girls working on Soi Cowboy or Nana are HIV positive.

For instance, according to the WHO:

However, problems remain. Infection rates among injecting drug users remain high at 20%-45% nationwide. And in rural areas, HIV infection rates among sex workers have increased. In 1997, 20% of sex workers in rural areas were HIV-positive compared with only 7% in Bangkok. To make matters worse, studies carried out in rural areas reveal that only 50% of men who visit sex workers consistently use condoms. And as risk behaviour increasingly shifts from commercial sex to unprotected casual sex, efforts will be needed to sustain reduced infection rates.

I know this is an old report but it demonstrates how using one infection rate across the entire country is flawed logic. Let’s say the combined total is 14% (since most of the population in Thailand is rural and places like Chiang Mai at one point had rates as high as 40%, I’m assuming the numbers skew to the high side). Saying you have a 14% chance of meeting an HIV positive sex worker in a brothel in Buriram is way too low and saying you have a 14% chance in Nana is double the rate for Bangkok as a whole.

Also, as mentioned before, even in the 7% Bangkok number there is no breakdown between sex workers who service Thais and farangs. I think it would be safe to assume that a Thai brothel is more likely to adopt the Thai casualness towards requiring condoms than would be a farang owned bar on Soi Cowboy. And seeing as that there are more sex workers working in the Thai sex industry than in the farang sex industry, again, assuming a 7% infection rate for your average Nana go-go is likely to be a huge overestimate.

And on top of all that, there’s the tendency to automatically assume a sex worker is a female. There is a vibrant transgender and gay prostitution industry in Bangkok as well. Unfortunately, most educational and awareness programs are aimed at women so, again, I think one would have to assume that HIV rates would run higher in the gay and transgender sex industry which would inflate the Bangkok numbers (the number of gay brothels outside of Bangkok is assumed to be very small compared to within Bangkok) as they too are sex workers.

We may never know the actual truth about what the infection rate is in farang sex venues. Nor is it likely that we will ever hear any sort of accurate numbers regarding how many farangs are contracting HIV from sleeping with Thai prostitutes. Actually we might if there was an alarming trend but barring that the NGOs and other groups who gather this type of data would be doing Thailand a disservice if they were to indicate that the chance of contracting HIV in farang oriented sex venues was relatively low. Better to report the overall number so as to put enough scare into potential customers that they either think twice about going with a prostitute or concerned enough to insist on using a condom.

Again, I would like to close by saying that none of this is meant to downplay the likelihood or the consequences of contracting HIV. If anything it is more for the person who normally practices safe sex and has a condom break during intercourse with a go-go dancer and is wondering what the real chances of him contracting HIV might be without all of the hype and also without all the crazy conspiracy theories that purport everything from you can’t catch HIV from heterosexual sex to there being no link between HIV and AIDS. After reading way too many threads and websites with people giving inaccurate data on both sides of the argument I simply wanted to take a neutral look at the subject and invite people who may have found better data sources than I was able to to comment and better educate people on this important topic.

Wear a condom. Always!

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Medical Tourism in Thailand is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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A nice little video about medical tourism in Thailand. It mostly focuses on the Vejthani Hospital but there are many similar hospitals throughout Bangkok.

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Cosmetic Procedures in Thailand is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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Thailand is called the land of smiles and for a good reason. Like all medical care, cosmetic surgery in Thailand is inexpensive and of a high quality.

Cosmetic Procedures in Thailand

Cosmetic surgery can be an expensive and time consuming experience. When choosing to have a cosmetic procedure, you need to weigh all of your options carefully before committing to having the procedure done. While many people will save their money for years in order to get their cosmetic surgery done by the most trendy doctors in places like New York City and Los Angeles, other patients have found a way around this long wait and expense. More and more, people are taking vacation trips to other countries and combining these trips with cosmetic surgery procedures.

When it comes to taking trips for cosmetic surgery Thailand has been at the forefront of this trend. Since the early 1990′s, tourists have been flocking to Thailand for the care of their cosmetic surgeons, clinics, and posh recovery sites. The favorable exchange rate with Thailand combined with less expenses incurred by the surgeons means that patients who choose to have their procedures done here will pay far less than what they would in the United States. Phuket, an island resort in Thailand, has been offering their special brand of cosmetic surgery and vacation atmosphere to patients for years.

When choosing cosmetic surgery, Thailand offers a lot more than just a cheaper place to have your procedure done. Surgeons at the Phuket Cosmetic Surgery Clinic are also world-renowned for a special type of cosmetic surgery – sex reassignment, or sex change, surgery. They are one of the few clinics in the world that offer this type of surgery, but they are certain not to take such a change in their patients’ appearance lightly. Anyone who wants sex reassignment surgery performed here must pass rigorous psychological studies and medical testing before the surgeons will consent to the procedure. Of course, the doctors of Phuket and other cities in Thailand perform many other types of cosmetic surgery, and the country also offers some of the best spa retreats in the world where you can relax and recover from your surgery in style.

You can also entertain yourself with the many cultural activities that Thailand has to offer, but you must remember some items before planning your trip. There is always some risk to cosmetic surgery, whether you choose to have it performed in the US or Thailand, so be careful to research your doctor and clinics thoroughly before leaving for your trip. Another issue may arise in the language barrier – be sure that you will have a translator available to help you communicate with medical staff, or that they speak English. Almost all of them speak great English, but we are talking about surgery here. If you keep in mind these few precautions, you can be sure your trip will be a successful one.

Truth be told, I have never had cosmetic surgery in Thailand. When I go every few years, however, I do have a checkup, get my teeth cleaned and so on. The medical care is excellent and inexpensive. Oh, the beaches aren’t to bad either!

Ricardo de Silva is with PlasticSurgeonPractices.com – a directory of plastic surgeons.

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