avoiding the Siam sore throat

[ting_tong 63]

I have avoided the dreaded "jep khor" by having pills I bought at the pharmacy on Soi Buakhao opposite the siam sawasdee hotel, and across from the money exchange booth. The pharmacy is next to blue room bar, and Kim massageIII

 

At the first slight feeling of a sore throat (tickle), I took the pills, they look like a red M&M and is named stocof, or stocol ? I took 3x a day for 3 days and only ended up with only a runny nose.

 

With the cooler weather, many of the TGs get sick fast, and it spreads quickly, everyone has it. People are coughing everywhere.

[bangkapiboy 5]

proper sleep helps with any sickness. partying all night every night will make anyone sick after a while i think.

[Badtz 0]

The first thing I do now in a new room in Pattaya is take the filters out of the air con and wash them by hand in the shower. One look at the Air con filters here and it's no wonder everyone gets a sore throat or lung infection. I have several friends that have nasty lung infections right now. The air con filters and car/motorbike fumes are tough on your lungs/throat.

 

If you do get a lung infection get down to boots and get Strepsils-Chesty Cough. They only sell it at boots and pharmacies. The other strepsils you get at 7-11 and Freindship don't seem to work too well-for me at least. It costs 28 baht.

Also don't be scared to go into any of the Thai clinics you see on any street. The doctors only charge you for the medicine. the consultations are free.

 

I got pnemonia here this year and it was absolutely no joke. I ended up with a series of 4 Antibiotic Injections, 10 days of oral antibiotics, steroids, Antihistimeine, Cough Suppressent, and an anti muculant. Total Cost 800b and 4 doctor visits (free). Needless to say I am a big fan of Thai Clinics. I should have gone in at the first signs instead of self medicating and waiting 5 days.. Pound of cure, ounce of prevention....

[Lancashirelad 0]

1. Don't lick pussy

 

2. No ice in drinks

 

3. DO NOT leave air con on all night.

 

Stick to those 3 basic rules & you should be ok.

 

.........now if only i was able to practise what i preach....have come away from Thailand with terrible bronchial infections 2 out of the last 3 trips, both times i have left the aircon on all night just ONE time!

[Owen` 2]

My 2 cents worth.

 

Upper respiratory infections are usually viral. Strep is worrisome, but the majority are viral.

 

The question of transmission vector has been debated forever. Two classic studies yielded slightly different results, but the truth evolved from both.

 

In one study a person with a cold was put in a room with 10 other people and they stayed there talking for 1.5 hrs. The person with the cold was coughing and sneezing.

 

Of the 10, two got a cold within the next 2 weeks.

 

In another study, a person with a cold was put in a room with 10 other people. They stayed there 1.5 hours playing cards. No other change to the experiment was done. Simply, card playing was substituted for conversation.

 

Seven of the 10 caught the cold.

 

Sneezing is an obvious issue, but most infections are through physical contact with infected surfaces.

 

So . . . to cut down on your headcolds, do two things. When you need to scratch or touch your face, get in the habit of doing so with the back of your hand, not the palm. The palm has lots of bugs on it. The back of your hand doesn't. If your nose itches, scratch it with the back of your hand.

 

The second thing is use your left hand to open doors. It will fit around a knob differently than most who grab it and this will reduce germ pickup.

[Kev 173]

Not bad Owen I like your thinking, also wash the old hands after doing all these things help as well.

 

Me myself I never follow any of my advice and have never been crook overseas except for the REALLY BAD hangovers (self indulged) and a case of the shits a couple of times (way too much chilli when self induldging)!

 

[wacmedia 277]

Hi

 

My respiratory system is my achilles heel, however I never catch colds in LOS. I eat lots of hot Thai food and soup and I think that may be the reason. An old hand who lives in the boonies told me Tom Yung is very good as a medicine.

[carlew 0]

Everytime I go to Thailand I come down with some sort of cold in one shape or another.It is mainly due to hitting the piss and smoking like there is no tommorrow for the first couple of days and my immune system gets shot to pieces.I am then susceptible to any bug going around and normally catch something.Plenty of fruit off of the street vendors,plenty of soups with chilli and a couple of days off the piss normally gets me back to normal again.Oh and plenty of "catch up"sleep helps too.

[thechairman18 174]

I don't know if this is a case of mind over matter.

But to avoid a dry throat, which is usually caused by the air con, I wash a T shirt, or underwear, every night, and hang them up as close as possible to the a/c fan outlet.

The fan blows the water out of the clothes, and into the air, to provide enough moisture to save me getting a dry and sore throat.

Seems to work for me, and dry clothes in the morning.

thechairman18

[BobbySanuk 0]

Not bad Owen I like your thinking, also wash the old hands after doing all these things help as well.

 

Me myself I never follow any of my advice and have never been crook overseas except for the REALLY BAD hangovers (self indulged) and a case of the shits a couple of times (way too much chilli when self induldging)!

 

Kev,

 

You are right. I wash my hands as often a possible. I seldom catch a cold or get diereaha.

 

I would like to suggest to carrying a small bottle of waterless hand cleaner. Cheap and last a long time.

[Eneukman 1]

Kev,

 

You are right. I wash my hands as often a possible. I seldom catch a cold or get diereaha.

 

I would like to suggest to carrying a small bottle of waterless hand cleaner. Cheap and last a long time.

The waterless hand cleaner is a good idea. Presumably you can get it in a pharmacy here as well as abroad?

 

A girl I bar fine every so often has had a bad cough for a while but fortunately I have managed to avoid catching whatever virus she has.

 

We had a very nice dinner at Globetrotters the other night and afterwards came straight back to the condo as she wanted to try and get some sleep. Just as well as I had a major dose of the shits when we got back. Three emergency evacuations within the space of 40 minutes or so! I was fine after that so whatever caused it coluldn't have been too serious.

 

Alan

[Danah 0]

I am now into my second decade of going to Thailand every six months and I have gotten sick or horribly sick every single time. I get sick quickly (around 7 days) and it takes me as long as three months to recover. Thailand for me is a place of sickness. I have noticed that for many expats it is also a place of sickness. When you correspond with them or you visit them they are either getting sick or they are sick or they just got over being sick. They all have clinic and hospital and doctor stories. Many of them go through an anitbiotic program as often as three times per year which is crazy. So they have made the big committment and moved to a place of continual sickness. The evidence is that a lot of western systems of adult age simply can not make the biological adjustment to Thailand.

 

Pretty women but a place of sickness. You always pay.

 

Dana

[Owen` 2]

I am now into my second decade of going to Thailand every six months and I have gotten sick or horribly sick every single time. I get sick quickly (around 7 days) and it takes me as long as three months to recover.

 

While there are bugs there you don't encounter in your normal life and therefore have little immunity to, they would not explain what you are enduring.

 

I travel a great deal. I have seen things like this before with other people. It is very much like the guy who plays blackjack and a certain card combination occurs and he acts a particular way when it does, saying "I always hit when I have a 6-7 and the dealer has a 6."

 

Well, the reply to that guy is "do you win more often than you lose?"

 

Point being, habits can form that aren't clearly bad without careful analysis.

 

From your description I'd have to suggest you're doing something wrong. There is some habit on your trips that you are doing that you think is meaningless and it isn't.

 

Maybe you have a favorite hotel and a favorite room in it (that happens to have Legionnaires disease in the air con filters). Maybe you have a favorite restaurant that you always go to early in a trip (that infects you with something ugly).

 

Could be anything. Maybe you can deduce it.

[ting_tong 63]

they dont sell stocol any more! I went back and it was not being sold or re-ordered. I have a small collection at home, but it dont do me any good there!

[PolePolisher 1]

I used to suffer from some sort of respiratory ailment on about 50% of trips but as it was always at the start of the holiday I put it down to being stuck in a plane of 11 hours with several hundred other people breathing dry, stale, re-circulated air. To say Thailand is a place of continual sickness is just silly, most Thai's I see look a lot healthier than the majority of tourists who come here. I whole heartedly agree with Owen that the indigenous bugs also are probably having a field day with our unsuspecting immune systems.

 

Look at it this way:

11 hours+ in a plane in close proximity to hundreds of other people and no fresh air

Stress from travel and acclimatisation

High levels of alcohol

Late hours and disrupted sleep patterns and eating habits

Low resistance to local bugs

 

It's a tribute to the human constitution that most of us aren't spending our hols in intensive care!

 

PP

[ronno 10]

I often carry a small bottle of listerine and a pack of tissues. Listerine is an antiseptic which kills viruses as well as bacteria. I frequently wipe my hands with a tissue moistened in the stuff (especially on airplanes!).

[livermore 0]

I have to agree with the hand washing, very important. Another thing is to try to avoid rubbing yours eyes. I aslo tend to believe the air con is the source for the respitory infections I have had in the past. I try to remember to turn the bloody thing down before bed but invariably I'll forget at least one night and I soon pay for it. I am going to try what the previous poster suggested and wash the filter. Stay healthy.

[Samsonite 181]

I used to suffer from some sort of respiratory ailment on about 50% of trips but as it was always at the start of the holiday I put it down to being stuck in a plane of 11 hours with several hundred other people breathing dry, stale, re-circulated air. To say Thailand is a place of continual sickness is just silly, most Thai's I see look a lot healthier than the majority of tourists who come here. I whole heartedly agree with Owen that the indigenous bugs also are probably having a field day with our unsuspecting immune systems.

 

Look at it this way:

11 hours+ in a plane in close proximity to hundreds of other people and no fresh air

Stress from travel and acclimatisation

High levels of alcohol

Late hours and disrupted sleep patterns and eating habits

Low resistance to local bugs

 

It's a tribute to the human constitution that most of us aren't spending our hols in intensive care!

 

PP

You might want to read this:

"There are several characteristics of the cabin air system that deserve special emphasis:

Air circulation is continuous. Air is always flowing into and out of the cabin.

The cabin has a high air-change rate. All of the air in the cabin is replaced by the incoming mixture of outside air and filtered air during intervals of only two to three minutes, depending on airplane size. That's 20 to 30 air changes per hour.

Outside-air mixing replenishes the cabin air constantly. The outside-air content keeps carbon dioxide and other contaminants well within standard limits and replaces oxygen far faster than the rate at which it is consumed. Replenishment also assures that the recirculated portion of the air does not endlessly recirculate but is rapidly diluted and replaced with outside air."

 

The whole story can be found here:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/cabinair/index.html

[redwood13 56]

Quoting from Bartlett's "Management of Respiratory Tract Infections" 3rd Ed.

 

"Transmission by air does not appear to be efficient for most viruses, and even 'wet kissing' is less efficient than hand contact. Aerosol spread appears important in the transmission of influenza virus and picoronaviruses."

 

"The usual mechanism is hand contact with an infected individual or contaminated object, followed by self-innoculation by either finger-to-nose or finger-to-eye spread."

 

-redwood

[soibj 0]

The first thing I do now in a new room in Pattaya is take the filters out of the air con and wash them by hand in the shower. One look at the Air con filters here and it's no wonder everyone gets a sore throat or lung infection. I

I have to agree here, I got sick along the ways in Pattaya and I think that there are not many if any hotels that clean this air filter. Now when you have constant mongers and BG's from all over recirculating their infections and germs through these, they need to be cleaned or you take your risk to me.

[lingo 0]

if you have a fan & a/c, switch the a/c off & use the fan only! any filter will be full of microbes & in humid warm countries they are the perfect breeding ground for every nasty known to man!

also on flights the oxygen is reduced to save money, so the co2 levels are higher than normal, when you drink, dehydration is accelerated & intoxication happens much faster.

[pentire 1]

Seldom do I have any problem since I now always switch the A/C off while sleeping.

All of the decent hotels have floor standing fans available for guests because Asian clients usually insist upon them.

Plenty of quality (non alcohol induced) sleep is also vital to stay healthy and I try to obtain that in the afternoon sat in a deck chair on the beach & breathing in fresh air.

Edited February 25, 2006 by pentire

[jambo 0]

I have been back just over a week from my most recent trip.

 

After the first week or so I started to get a very sore throat but it also included a fever. I was burning up.

 

I went to the Pattaya Bangkok Hospital which was an absolute model of efficiency and the nurses are something else. Very smart in their uniforms and most were at least 8 on the mongering scale.

 

The doctor looked down my throat and said acute tonsilitis. He also said I was rundown, looked tired and had been working too hard! more like shagging and drinking too hard!

 

Antibiotic injection in my bum made me feel so much better by the first evening, and the remainder of the antibiotic tablets plus some others to get rid of the inflamation did the trick. Total bill was over 7000bt.

 

Needless to say, my complimentary travel insurance has a £50 excess on medical expenses!

[redwood13 56]

Couple of more visits and we'll be seeing the JAMBO OTOLARYNGOLOGIST WING of the new building.

 

-redwood

[adrian 0]

i'm usually sceptical about the claims of lotions, potions and shit like that,

but, i'm convinced colloidal silver is keeping me healthier.

you might pay $20 or so for a few hundred ml's of this stuff in a naturo/health

store, though it's real easy to make your own with 2 pieces of silver, a 9v battery

and some pure water.

this stuff seems to be able to kill off any viral and bacterial nasties before they

can get a good grip on your body.

Edited March 1, 2006 by adrian