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Holiday from hell: How eating Pad Thai from food court in Thailand left Aussie couple with debilitating illness


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9 hours ago, wilcopops said:

Rubbish!

Sorry.  My statement is qualified by the fact that my career gave me the opportunity to qualify to a paramedic level in remote areas medicine.  due to the fact my duties entailed me to spend as lot of time in SE Asia and SW pacific regions. I know what I'm talking about.

 

Your call

 

 

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12 minutes ago, FredGallaher said:

You are referring to E. histolytica not D. fragilis. E.histolytica is responsible for amoebic dysentery and in latter stages can invade other tissues, esp the liver. Most cases cause flask like ulcers in the large intestine with dysentery. If left untreated they can (not all) go to the liver where they what we call an amoebic liver abscess. It can also go to other tissues. There is no evidence that D. fragilis is invasive and in healthy individuals is consider non-pathogenic. Infections with D fragilis mostly it shows a breakdown in personal or food hygiene. 

D. fragilis has a world wide distribution, but probably more common in the tropics.

Well said.  It's a pity some of us have to spend a lot of time stamping out ignorance that keeps rearing its head here.

 

The diagram MIGHT educate a few reading this.  For some - the words are too big!

Parasite..jpeg

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1 hour ago, FredGallaher said:

Thanks. You are one of the few who understand medical parasitology. I've tried to keep it simple so that readers here can understand. It irks me when people write rubbish that they know nothing about. Actually the original posting left me with many doubts of its authenticity. 

Yep.  A couple of things I stated before.  When I read the Aussie news reports I smelt a rat.  The couple who claim that they pinned it to one particular meal run a health and well-being business and - to me - looks like a big grab for notoriety and money.  Considering the parasitic transfer method is commonly believed to be fecal-oral it could come from ANYWHERE.  Something like salmonella - fast-reacting - is a bit easier to pin down but this particular bug - in some cases having no obvious symptoms in some people - is a bit harder to find.

 

As you state - more common in the tropics due to the overall standard of the population and personal hygiene levels there.  Less common in higher-educated countries.

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On 7/10/2019 at 8:14 AM, Lenny Jones said:

Australia is unique insofar distance and isolation makes it relatively parasite-free

Not according to multiple Australian government health websites.  But you are entitled to disagree.

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6 hours ago, Anythingleft? said:

Anybody else puzzled why they had to ask several times or several doctors for a course of antibiotics

Hardly hard core drugs are they

What am I missing?.....

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
 

Not unusual for Aussie GPs.  The symptoms for parasites like this are difficult to diagnose as they are similar to more common illnesses.  Due to the general hygiene standards in Australia parasitic illnesses are comparatively rare, the most common ones being hydatids and giardia.

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1 hour ago, HHTel said:

Not according to multiple Australian government health websites.  But you are entitled to disagree.

I should have said "comparatively" - not "relatively"  I'f you look at Aussie gov health bulletins they are aimed at education and prevention, not occurrence statistics.

 

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18 hours ago, vanillalatte said:

you try to be funny,but you show only your total ignorance;

to test for amoeba you have to give samples of your stools to lab.

they will keep it for reference.

Capito?

Not necessarily true. The original samples are not kept once processed. In fact most samples come in preservatives (one in PVA and the other in Formalin). A good parasitology lab prefers a fresh sample if loose or liquid but this isn't always possible and must be examined immediately. The formalin concentration sample may be kept for a few days then discarded if negative. A smear is made from the PVA sample and stained with Trichrome Stain and or acid fast stain. This may be kept for a while but there are no requirements. Positive samples are often kept for teaching purposes. Not all laboratory scientist are skilled in parasitology. 

The parasitology laboratory usually keep a library of positive reference slides. 

For E. histolytica a stool serological test is prefered. 

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5 hours ago, Lenny Jones said:

Not unusual for Aussie GPs.  The symptoms for parasites like this are difficult to diagnose as they are similar to more common illnesses.  Due to the general hygiene standards in Australia parasitic illnesses are comparatively rare, the most common ones being hydatids and giardia.

True. Aussie doctors along with those from most developed countries lack experience in parasitology and/or tropical diseases. 

If in Bangkok the best place for answers and/or diagnosis is Mahidol University, Faculty of Tropical Medicine. They are on Rajivithi road close to Victory Monument. They have a outpatient clinic and hospital that specializes in treatment of tropical diseases. They speak excellent English.

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On 7/8/2019 at 11:23 AM, sammieuk1 said:

Looks like they ate some pad die by mistake????

 

       Do you mean ,   farlang die ..555

      Food  courts , are brill good food , and affordable , for brits ..

 

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On 7/8/2019 at 11:47 AM, RichardColeman said:

Another satisfied tourist for the TAT's figures

 

 Too , be fair and candid , he was not a sex tourist .

   Thai ,, not want his type in the kingdom . He not want bye house .

    

 

 

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On 7/11/2019 at 7:06 AM, Lenny Jones said:

Sorry.  My statement is qualified by the fact that my career gave me the opportunity to qualify to a paramedic level in remote areas medicine.  due to the fact my duties entailed me to spend as lot of time in SE Asia and SW pacific regions. I know what I'm talking about.

 

Your call

 

 

20190118_131404.jpg

Rubbish....just shows you how unqualified paramedics can be.

Never trust a nurse or paramedic to give you a diagnosis or medical opinion...a little bit of knowledge can be thoroughly dangerous.....QED.

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3 minutes ago, David harrison said:

Hi everyone just a warning to all of you who eat at Tops Restaurant at Century Plaza Sukhumvit Road Bangkok . Please be careful in what you eat! We ordered a Thai dish and it came with a Live Snail they obviously do not wash their salad.  Please check the video out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7GmMqEZU1o&feature=youtu.be

Did they charge extra for it ??

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  • 1 month later...

This is so ridiculous. I just signed up because I had to say something! Dientamoeba fragilis is a parasite. So, one of many possible scenarios: You touch a doorknob, you touch your mouth, you get infected. The pad thai scenario is much less likely since the food got heated and that usually kills the parasite. Not to mention many people carry it in their body and never experienced any symptoms. Anyway, I think the next time I get malaria I'm going to blame pad thai and tell everyone how horrible Thailand is. And damn, I heard about cases of brain-eating amoeba in the US and Europa. People died because of it. <deleted> burgers and baguettes! People like that should focus on SEO if they want to push their dying blog and not try to get attention by <deleted> the reputation of a country. That's worse than fake news. And no, I'm not Thai. I just hate ignorance!

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  • 2 months later...

Getting a touch of food poisoning is common in many countries.  In North America we used to call it "Montezuma's Revenge".  The Mexicans and Central Americans had a different name but used to get it regularly on trips to North America.  A few years back I was feeling pretty cocky and eating off Cambodian food carts and smoothy shops.  Sure enough, I picked up a dose of the "Khmer Kiss"  (I know I shouldn't have but in my defense, I'm not very bright).  It's just our guts reaction to a new and unknown bacteria.  Uncomfortable but it doesn't normally last that long.

 

Amoebic or parasitic diseases are a whole different thing.  They are dangerous and life threatening.  You should soon be at a doctors office requesting a tropical specialist and recounting which countries you've been in and the timeline.

 

I'm glad these people finally got the assistance they needed and will recover.

 

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