Prob'ly Headed to India or Thailand for Surgery

I was here at the forum many years ago, under my same current handle. I've returned specifically intent upon looking to find an old acquaintance from back 'then,' with whom I'd had many a discussion, whose knowledge and presence left positive memories. His handle was Naga_Sadu, and he lived in India.

I now find myself in relatively serious need to locate him, or someone of his level of knowledge regarding India. I'm hoping he's still lurking in the shadows here.

There used to be a private message system at ICMag, though I can't remember how to access it, and don't know if it still exists.

I'm likely needing surgery (possibly multiple surgeries) in the near future, racing a financial deadline, trying not to bankrupt my family in the process. Not meaning to resonate with self-pity, just telling like it is.

I know medical care can be had in India for far less in the States, especially where I live, though I also know that there are excellent, and not-so-excellent hospitals and clinics there.

If someone knows how to contact Naga, how to access the PM system (it it's still functional), or can answer questions in a more private setting re. clinics in India, places to stay there for a while during recovery, etc., I'd be grateful.

If anyone remembers me from days of higher spirits, greener grass, and more verbose times, feel free to chime in and say hello. My days of activism have wound down, cynical outlook increased a fair bit, and I'm much older now, but the spirit is still there, though perhaps glowing like remnant coals on a dark night, after a long burn.

Thanks, and take care.

U need 50 posts to access the pm system.. Good luck

Thanks. In the meantime, if anyone else has similar pertinent knowledge and willingness as Naga, I'm all ears.. with a little bit of hair left, too.

Sorry,but your friend has not been on since late 2007.I left a message for you,but don't know how much luck you will have...2007..that's a long time.

Hope you find some help,and I wish you good luck.

I just typed "surgery India" into a search engine and it brought up a lot of relevant links. What you want to do is called medical tourism. Spend some time on the computer searching relevant word combos and you should find what you're looking for. I've heard Belgium is great for dental work. You mentioned India and Thailand which I know are both popular for surgeries. Facilities specializing in medical tourism will have the logistics figured out for you. I've read comments from people who had good experiences with this. I'd hate to be the guy for whom it didn't work out well half way around the world from home though. Good luck.

thai women are hot ,,,india not so much ..choose Thailand and bang a few hotties while there....yeehaw..good luck and I hope you get well

Thanks to all three of you, stoned trout, Crusader Rabbit, and Slim Pickens. I appreciate any and all information.

Another poster pointed out that I can't access private messaging until I reach 50 points, and I'm not the sort of person to write 50 posts with two words each, ultimately equaling two sentences or so; game-playing has never been cool. So I'll try to do it the honest way, and get there as soon as I can.

I've already done a fair bit of research, but it's like advertisers in the U.S.; anyone can blow their own trumpet loudest through internet ads/sites, but knowing who is -really- good, especially when they're hacking on your spine, is almost always a matter of boots-on-the-ground sorts of information.

Thailand is my preferred place to go, though for numerous reasons other than the very friendly 'tour guides.' The difference being that in many of the comparisons of various surgeries, and pricing costs of procedures at specific clinics/countries, Thailand tends to run about 50% more than India (i.e., recent pricing from a couple years back for a total knee replacement with titanium joint and knuckle was about $6,000 USD in India, and $9,000 USD in Thailand).

The whole medical tourism thing is thick with U.S.-based (and international) scalpers making thousands off of booking your air-fare, hotel, cabs in advance, and the hospital and surgeon; the scalpers/corporations doing that make huge money at it or they wouldn't exist. Like trying to get to a Rolling Stones concert and ending up paying more than twice the ticket price to the guy out in front of the stadium; best avoided if possible..

If one is frugal (or limited financially), and has contacts, much of that can be done for several thousand dollars less by researching and booking those things independently.

A family member has an old friend over there, from high school days, more in the mainstream life than Naga was. Naga was a brother, so to speak, as well as educated, pure of thought and heart, sincere, and from my experience of him, without ever sitting around a camp fire with him, a generally GOOD person. It's folks like him that sometimes we wait too long in life, whether family or friends, to reacquaint ourselves, not just for the tangible benefits they can render us, but for who they are, and what they mean to us. Another lesson in the importance of staying connected to the heart, and those connected to it.

Thanks all for every bit of assistance.. I'm still hunting for helpful first-hand info. Have some already, but still looking.

Kindly, and take care.

By the way, India requires visas, and offers a fairly wide variety of types of visas, including a medical visa, specifically for what I'm trying to get done. Hopefully past activism in my home country doesn't preclude me from obtaining such.. There's always another hurdle, isn't there? ;^>

Again, take care.

I want to make a sex change joke, but I just can't.

Good luck with your surgery, and good luck finding your friend.

Thanks floralheart. The system won't permit me to give rep points to any of the responses yet, due to my 'new' status here, regardless of years gone by.

And a 'good luck' is always taken as a kind word, unless walking into a blast furnace..... in which case it might be taken as a bit weak..... or insincere. But thanks for the wishes, seriously ;^>

The sex change joke wouldn't probably be offensive either, but likely more pertinent to a trip to Copenhagen; the site, if I recall correctly, of the first such surgery... Offensiveness being more relative to the spirit in which statements are made.

How's that for surgical trivia??

Take care.

Do you speak Thai?

They gave me "stroke" medication to help me quit smoking at this this place which is more like a 4+ star hotel than a hospital ( https://www.bumrungrad.com/thailandhospital

Very nice but stroke meds ?

They say Singapore is best in Asia but if they "no speak English" you might want to turn around and leave.

i can't really help on the med tourism
but i will bring the OB care word, which is a hot button for many, not trying to stir up anything
coverage options ought to be available, insurance companies can not deny coverage based on preexisting conditions
but i would think the OP has looked, just unpleasantly surprised

Thanks Tudo and igrowone.

Not eligible for ACA/ObamaCare for specific reasons relative to the constraints within the Act.

I could get care at a local hospital with questionable 'specialists,' but the days of accepting services, and paying $20, $50, $200/month, or the hospital writing the whole debt off as an acceptable loss are pretty well gone here. A friend had cancer and for years the debt collectors hounded him like he was a wanted felon with long hair, hiding in in Alabama...

Thailand should offer lots of primary A+ care where folks speak English; depends where you go. Even more so in India; lots of folks speak fluent English, but you have to be thorough in researching WHERE you seek care.. Really in both places this applies.

I read a recent article ('recent' being more and more relative, the older I get), written by a physician who'd gone to Bangkok for personal/business/tourist reasons, and 2-1/2 hrs. off the aircraft had serious stuff set in; shortness of breath, heart stuff, yadda yadda.. He was a U.S. M.D. and he spoke extremely highly of the care he received, versus the images that ran through his mind while the ambulance was taking en route.

There was another article written last year or so by a woman from the U.S. who had a knee replacement done in Belgium. If I could afford it, I'd be there, as we have friends in eastern Netherlands. She pointed to how hospitals in the U.S. often find a way to not only gouge price-wise, but to charge for things that European and Asian hospitals would never dream of. When she asked the admin person, "How much do I get charged for the surgery room?" (a standard fee in the U.S., he reportedly looked at her like she was from mars, and replied, "Ma'am, how could we possibly do your surgery without a surgery room?"

As far as wrong-headed meds go, I'll be the first to chime in. I've had friends killed in the U.S. by the cure that an EXPENSIVE Doc prescribed for them; steroids of asthma that blew out his heart. He was a good man, and long-time friend, ran a sound studio in the mid-west.

I'm currently trying to find the right combinations of the Rx's I had to pay out of pocket for that gave me reactions like no street drugs you've ever heard of, simply due to whopper doses. Medical care in the U.S. and a few other places is one of the few fields where when the Doc gets it wrong, they still charge you, and if you go back to have them get it right, they charge you again.. No restaurant I've ever eaten at, regardless of quality, played that way. But the prim donnas among us sure do.. (Like I said, I shouldn't get started on this, as it hit REAL close to home for me.

My mother O.D.ed and died on acetaminophen years and years ago. And nobody's kicking in doors over Tylenol, I can guarantee you..

And the off-label use of drugs for stuff they were never intended for is nothing shy of incredible. A primary old-school anti-depressant started its marketing life as a remedy for hives, more or less a whole-body anti-histamine, and one which knocks you on your butt if you take it in even moderate strength. Again, the off-label uses open doors sometimes left closed,, but Big Pharma and their corporate cousins seem to run the planet these days.

I'd consider Malaysia, and I don't mean to sound snooty, but I have a philosophical commitment to myself not to shed any cash that way for their execution of drug prisoners, including past death sentences that were sometimes commuted, for tourists who fell prey to Aussie/Malaysian gangs using tourist luggage as transport, and the tourists in question believably weren't even aware what had occurred to their checked bags once the bags left their control.

For similar reasons, I have some degree of heartburn for considering Thailand, but.....

Anyway, I apologize for the distraction in the use of bandwidth here. I Naga is alive, and someone knows him, let him know I'm looking. If Naga has gone to the here-after, and you knew him, please say a prayer fro him for me. If someone else has ideas, please chime in. Everyone is welcome to lend feed-back, and there are very few angles I haven't or won't consider. Though I'm sure there's some things I haven't thought about.

And thanks again for the input from the two of you, as well. Every block in a pyramid got put there by someone.

Take care.

Hey Moose Eater ... long time no see .... Hope things are all good for you . Just thought you might enjoy seeing that there were lots of ppl that missed you when you slipped away.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=59069

I'm more than honored by the little bit I read there, Babba, and it's good to see your avatar here as well. Nice knowing there are folks I can refer to as my seniors here, whom I respect, and who represent something that still reminds me of a time long ago, when there was a more clear direction and dream.

I'm a guy with a mixed past, and there's some clothes that don't come off as easy as they go on. When I read that kind of praise and interest in me, I get humble about it. It brings a tear, as there's still some conflict in me, and always will be, about meaning in life, purpose, sins of the past and present, compromises, the human condition, both general and specific, and more.

Numerous times in life I've gotten to a place where the fear became a source of greater resentment than what brought it. My departure was one of those moments on the low end, albeit likely wise at that time.

Many of us in such places or circumstances tend to lead socially isolated lives, or just find an extension of it, finding kindred spirits for a while in places like this.

In my absence I found myself in Manhattan a few years back, doing a brief gig during OWS, and re-found some of the clan that represented my brothers and sisters from long ago and far away. It's one of those mixed bags, like the thread you linked to, where the beauty is both yin and yang, the heart-tugging of what used to be represents some form of serious loss, while the same source brings a smile; crying raindrops through sunshine.and there's a place inside that has always had some difficulty absorbing it.

Glad to see you're still here, still free, and still doing the do.

Take care.

Tudo they actually pioneered using those stroke meds for that very purpose. Lots of really well designed studies showing good efficacy and tolerance.

Thanks geopolitical. Not all off-label, or what were once off-label uses result in bad stories.

Some of us are more sensitive than others where tolerances are concerned, and end up in that group in studies where many well-intentioned meds result in nightmarish experiences. Been there and done that a couple times.. Trading one set of bad symptoms for another set of sometimes-worse symptoms has had me cussing loudly a time or three.

Meanwhile, I'm still seeking quality references for affordable over-seas clinics/teaching hospitals/surgery centers with stellar reputations for spinal surgery and/or orthopedic surgery.

The places aren't restricted to India or Thailand, either. They just need to fit the criteria, and be affordable for those who know the true meaning of 'affordable.'

Thanks.

And, by the way, due to my current post count, I'm not able to use the private message service here, so if anyone has a good tip for me, please post it in this thread.

If you sent a pm to me earlier, forgive me for not answering it, but, as stated, I can't access those yet.

Get your pms up. I was around back then.
As far as your medical tourism (thats what they call it) ill do some foot work for ya.
and not to be grim but you should have a contingency plan for your burial,God forbid something happens. It can happen if you get a tooth pulled. Not trying to scare you bro. Just got to have all angles worked out.
At the very least have your next to kin out there with you

Thanks, ghostmade. Trying to not be obnoxious in how I achieve the golden 50 posts.

Yes, I have the likelihood of my adult daughter flying with me part-time. She's a CNA; soon to be RN. We've butted heads, and neither is perfect, but we're repairing our 'chasms of the past' as she grows up and I get less spiteful toward imperfection and life.

I've covered burial with my wife already; the cheapest approach nearly always is to be planted in the country a person collapses and ends in. Death isn't a fear, other than for possible pain, and the most likely cause of death during surgery is #1) cardiac arrest, 2.) anesthesia (no pain ), and 3.) bleeding out.

In all three, assuming they haven't employed one of the Three Stooges to run the anesthesia, pain shouldn't be a factor.

"Waking up in the midst of such a cluster-f*ck?? Priceless..."

Natural burial if legally or otherwise possible; no embalming, plain bio-degradable soft-wood box, gold and purple tie-dye t-shirt, comfortable blue jeans and shoes, photos of all the dogs I've had throughout my blessed life, and photos of my immediate family members; children and wife. Set for the trip; where ever it may lead.

"Can't live without dying, can't die without living." ... The two are inseparable; the ultimate yin and yang.

If it's in India, I've already made a recommendation to my wife for it to be Northern, up toward Nepal. Getting a trustworthy soul to carry out such a mission provides yet another quandary, though.

If it's Thailand, up north of Chang Mai has its appeal too.

Lots of information available on-line re. foreign hospitals, etc., though trustable accounts that are clearly not the source blowing their own trumpet with a well-done ad site is more rare.

If I keep making lots of typos, and can't edit my posts to correct them yet, then I'm apt to hit 50 real quick, for all the apologizing I'll have to do for misspelling words, or using improper punctuation.