More health scares?

Had something horrible happen to me when I woke up Saturday very early in the morning, and turned over in bed... the room just started to spin at an astonishing rate and like a gyroscope pushing back against motion, I was totally unable to complete the turn, I fell back overwhelmed with motion sickness as the room flashed before me.

The spinning took about 20seconds to stop... Bugger, I must have been drunk last night, was my 1st thought... but... nope, I literally had one small glass of whiskey and lemonde as a thrist quencher rather than a session..

So I carefully get out of bed, slightly uneasy and get myself some water and go back to bed...noting that I can't move my head left or right without the spinning. I fully expected this to go away with a bit more sleep

It didn't... I was able to pinpoint it happened when I put my head in certain positions, and from then tried hard to avoid those, but this was very odd..

A bit of googling revealed I had something called BPPV, a type of vertigo that can be caused by....nothing at all, just happens.

I decded to wait till Monday to see if it died down, but it didn't ...off to the docs. Jirawan called a local clinic for me but they were not open, so she called the hospital to check if we could go in...yes.

Off we went, Jirawan driving as I can't honestly be trusted to drive if I get a dizzy spell. Registered at the desk and took basic details, then informed us the doctor was in surgery till 2,30 could we come back.

No problem, since we were going to go to the house site and take videos.

Off we went, and came back... I was seen by the doctor within 20mins, and she diagnosed the BPPV , though an attempt to check my ears was thwarted by 60+ years of accumulated ear wax, which she happily used a vaccuum tool to remove, with great delight showing the lumps of a future candle to Jirawan...
BPPV is harmless but unwelcome, it's caused by little crystals in your inner ear getting into the semi circular parts of the ear and throwing your balance off, the crystals are usually in a different part of the ear naturally but somehow get detached...your inner ear tells your brain you're falling when you're not and then you get intense motion sickness and balance issues that take you off your axis.

I was then taken to side room, to sit on a bed, where a series of positional head movements are done, which are designed to move the crystals back into the safe part of your ear, but.... in the process it triggers the vertigo, and you have to not move....which... is.....horrible.....

Anyway, she repeated this horror 2 times... and told me to be very careful not to move my head around too much or too quickly for a day or 2...and to sleep as upright as I can..

She also prescribed some drugs for the motion sickness, and some vitamin B12....no idea why.

Total time in the hossie, about 1.30mins, total cost... about 34 euros... wow... good service, good price...

I still have the vertigo though, it is better though, but its not quite cleared, but I have a follow up on Friday, and a Doctor friend of mine on Facebook has given me details of  very similar positional excercises I should do 3 times a day, so I will try those..

In the meantime, no driving...

Ahthankyew

Quick and cheap health care

edit, this a few weeks ago, but for some reason I didn't publish it, it got stuck in draft....

Yesterday I had an appointment at RAM skin clinic, to check out what I thought were two large moles (chest and back) which I'd had for a while but noticed were growing after seeing some holiday photo's from a few years back.

Booked appointment, was a bit late due to traffic, and went to main Hospital clinic, but got a golf buggy shuttle to the skin clinic who were ok about my lateness..
Saw the doctor within 10 mins. He reassured me they were just harmless but large, skin tags, a bit big for the band removal method but possible. What would I like to do?

I wanted them gone so he agreed to cut them off and I took a seat in the waiting room. 10 more minutes and I was called into a treatment room.
Small injection, stings a bit but not too bad, chop chop, bit of cautarization and flip over for the one on my back.

All done in less than 30mins, total cause 3,348 bhat... less than 90 euros.

Now... when I was in the NL (we left Dec 2025), I went to my doc in August, who sent me to a specialist in November, who was going to refer me to the local skin clinic for removal sometime in 2026.... I didn't really have time to follow that through as we were about to move to Chiang Mai...

Now I'm told RAM is one of the more expensive places to pay for things out of pocket, but honestly... I'm very happy with the service, the process and the price.

Oh btw I do have insurance, but because I'd seen the doctors in NL beforehand, it was excluded as a pre-existing condition.

We will continue to use small clinics, or government hospotals for minor issues we can pay out of pocket. The insurance we keep for big emergencies.

Ahthankyew

I'm legal again

I made mistake, quite a big one... in thinking that my International Drivers Permit allowed me 3 years of driving in Thailand.... it does not. While the IDP is valid for 3 years, in fact you are only allowed to use it for 3 months in Thailand...oops...this was a bit of a shock, and as soon as I found out I curtailed my driving and started collecting the paperwork to get my license exchanged.

This, turned out to be a bit of a chore, for a number of reasons.. First I needed a Certificate of Residency...actually 2, car/bike. A quick trip to Immigration and 120baht later, I get.... a tracking number for my post in about 3 weeks.

oh.. oh so we wait, Jirawan has to do the driving.

3 weeks come... and no sign,... But I get a call from a Thai number that immediatly hangs up on me when I greet the caller in English... 30 mins later, the Thai chat app, Line, pings me with what I assume is spam friend request, I get a lot of those.. but no... it is in fact someone in our neighbourhood who got my CoR.. her boyfriend was the hang up who didnt speak English. It seems our house numbers contain the same digits, but in a different order...and those wrong numbers are on the paper work..ooops.

I assume that I must have filled out the form wrong and transposed the digits, but no... they send the certificates to..the address on your TM.30, a legal document you get from immigration that registers where you are living....and on checking, indeed the TM.30 is wrong, but we'd never noticed it.

So I start panicking as I am prone to do when official things go wrong. But Jirawan calmly takes my tm30 to immigration, gets if fixed, then we collect the faulty CoRs, and go to immigration to get them fixed....next day...excellent.. no charge. Jirawan is amazing at doing such fixes.

So... now I have the paperwork. we go get medical certs, which is nothing more than a rubber stamp of health if you can actually walk into the doctors office with a heartbeat...... 800baht. and I need 2, 1 for bike, 1 for car.

Next step, according to the DLT website you can no longer walk in and wait....so you have to register with the DLT smart que app......its not smart... in fact, its the opposite of smart... but after struggling with it for hours, if finally let me get to the point of booking a day.....in October, 3 months away... my certs only have 30 day lifespans.

arrh... I again start stressing and getting wound up when Jirawan says just turn up.. I can't, I snap, they say I have to book.... 
But Jirawan calls them up... talks to someone, who tells us to get down to the DLT now, they will check our docs and give us a quicker date..

We rush down, to get there before closing...and indeed they check our docs, and give us a date.... tomorrow.

wow.

Now tomorrow is today and off we went at 9-30, was seen almost immediatly, docs, checked, some very very simple eye and co-ordination tests taken. And wait for 30 mins... 
Number called, pay 310 baht, go to queue for photo...

10 mins later I walk out with 2 shiny license.

Yes there is a lot of beaurocracy in Thailand, so much paperwork and steps to be taken, but the simple fact is, if you have a brilliant Thai wife... its all sabai sabai.

Ahthankyew

Ok... that is a lot...I mean... a lot of rain

Smokey season was interesting, it basically didn't start, despite all the warnngs, and doom sayers, Feb then, March.  April came with nothing to worry about......then......

When it did come it was horrific, the air was rancid, the sky was at times blocked out and it really was shocking, for about 4-6 weeks Smokey season was all anyone could talk about... We stayed in with our air purifiers running full tilt.. Going out, we didnt' actively wear masks, but some days, ok it was just safer to wear one...

But it passed, and gave way to the "rainy" season, the 1st rains were light, refreshing and cooling and most importantly washed the skies clear we had some truely wondeful weather, and despite a few showers which did that clearing, rainy season didn't really rain a lot. I scoffed at rainy season..

Lots of lovely clear days, I got a nice set of tee-shirt then vest, tan lines riding my bike around. Things were good until maybe 5pm when a nice light shower would clear things and we'd have a warm maybe humid evening to look forward to.

So rainy seasons, didn't really start.........

And now it has..... I'm thinking of building an Ark.... I may be able to persuade the neighbors to help... we need to be quick.

Ahthankyew