Riffs

I stayed at that hotel 2 years ago and it was great. A friend of mine stayed at it last year and loved it. The location is great and none of the noise at night from walking street. I use that hotel as my backup as it has all the basics and is generally a nice hotel. Good to hear they are still a good hotel.

I am not familiar with the Bangkok area at all. I am looking for a hotel near the Vejthani hospital in Bangkok. I would prefer one with internet and AC. Those are my main requirements. 2nd part of my question is, where is the action near that area if there is any near? thanks in advance.

Just wanted to share my experience at this hospital. I was looking to get knee surgery done and a few members of this board suggested the hospital. I checked into it and seemed pretty decent. I saw the Orthopedic surgeon and he was able to spot my problem in a few minutes that a previous doctor I saw in Kuwait missed twice. I have a torn quadriceps muscle from the patella. Being that it was detached over a year ago, the process was a little harder than normal. And my recovery will be longer than normal. Dr Viroj explained that to me and I went ahead and had the process done a few days ago. I stayed in their grand suite room and all I can say is the people here have been great. The nurses are friendly and real helpful. They can't speak much english, but they take their job seriously. It is a real friendly atmosphere here and a real nice place to stay. So far I am impressed with the hospital and especially they way I have been treated. I will be making a TR later and include some pics of the nurses, they are very cute. total price for operation and room for 4 nights, under 200,000 baht. Recovery will take up to 6 months, and I am very pleased with the process so far.

I stayed there from middle of May till end of June. There were a few days where some construction was being done in the rooms. I believe he is working on a few of the rooms. I would suggest to email Vic and found out if they are doing construction on some of the rooms or not.

thanks for the info, I will contact the hospital and see what they can help with. For my knee, I have a torn quadriceps muscle from the patella. It happened over a year ago and the doctor did not diagnose it right. When I was on vacation in Thailand a month ago, I went to the hospital and they did MRI and found the tear. Imagine a muscle that was allowed to atrophy for over a year. Stretch it back out then rehab. Luckily it isnt a weight bearing muscle, but will restrict my bending of the knee for quite a while. Doctor says because of the delay in diagnosis, I will only get 70% back, better than 0 as it is right now. Currently I can't run, or do biking for very long. Walking does get painful at time. Weight lifting is real tough for the legs because the muscle that is torn allows me to straighten the leg and a few other controlled movements. Guess I will have to fight through the pain in Pattaya.

I am heading back to Thailand for knee surgery sometime in Feb. I will be needing about 3 months of rehab. So I will be in Thailand for about 4 1/2 months. What is the best way to do that? Tourist Visa for 60 days then extend it? Request a permission for extended stay? Tourist visa, or stamp and do the Cambodia run every 30 days or when needed? Your thoughts on this please or perhaps you have a better way. On a side note, I work in Iraq so rehab out here will not work nor going back to the states. Tax reasons, plus the surgery in the states will be 10times or more than it will be in Thailand. And Thailand is much more fun

Here is what I ended up doing. I did a lot of checking and Vic from Queen Vic helped me out a lot. He sent one of his people (a local) with me down to the immigration office for me to get an extension. Seems that day, or week, or how they felt, only 7 day extension were being given and I could not get another beyond that. So I paid the fee, got the extension and did the Visa run. Vic did check his records, and the last person he sent there about 2 months ago got a 14 day extension. Seems the law or however they do it at the immigration office may change quite often. At least next time I know how to work within their system. I tried to do the right thing and it ended up costing me an extra 2000baht. Won't happen again. I was thinking of letting my 30day expire and just pay the fine at the airport, or do visa run and pay 500baht fine per day for expired visa.

I have a tourist visa, 30 days. I will be in Pattaya for a little over 6 weeks.

I am in Pattaya on vacation here for a little over 6 weeks. I will need to get a new visa sometime in the first 2 weeks of June. Is there anyone else who will need to renew theirs during that time frame so I can tag along with? I have a nice big window and am very flexible on the day. thanks in advance

I will be going in for a check at the Vegthani hospital in about 2 weeks. I will be in Pattaya on the 19th. I will keep everyone posted on how the surgery goes, but more importantly how well the hospital is equiped and if they can handle something like this. If they can't then I will be running, really limping out of there real fast. I do have 40 days of vacation set up for Pattaya and that should give me plenty of time to visit the doctor and see if they can or able to do something.

hwells, bangkok Pattaya hospital? is that in Pattaya? As for insurance, I have international health insurance because of the work I do. But I can't get any work done in this area. I do get 100% reimbursement so I just need to find a good hospital. I figure if I am stuck in bed for a few days, it should be a place where I can be waited on. I think I have a miniscus tear as all the searching pointed to that as the most likely cause. But I will need an MRI and doctor to verify that. And I am expecting orthoscopic surgey on my knee this time. First time for same knee I had surgery on my petellar tendon, with no difference. thanks for the repsonses, I do have more research to do in getting an appointment set up when I arrive there.

Has anyone ever had knee surgery or something similiar done in Thai? From what I have found out so far, it seems Bumrungrad in BKK is the best choice. My trip will be in Pattaya, but I may have to schedule my last week or so in BKK. I am thinking of trying to have some of the testing done in Pattaya then the last few parts in BKK to save some time. Or I just may have to take a day trip to BKK and get tested there, MRI and stuff. Any suggestions would be appreciated.