Mr. Jess Van Pelt

My name is Jess Van Pelt. I am 69 years of age. I am from the United States of America. I live in the state of California, in a small city by the name of Ridgecrest near Death Valley.

Well, since I've lived here for a long time, I've used this hospital and the physicians here for my personal needs as I—as I need to see them. I started seeing Dr. Niti in the urology department, I would guess, maybe eight, nine years ago. When I started seeing him, it was first for just general checkup—somebody getting older, I want to see a urologist once a year to make sure everything's okay, check the PSA level, things of that nature.

BPH is... somebody who has an enlarged prostate, and with an enlarged prostate, it causes difficulties with urination. I was starting to experience some of those difficulties, so at that point in time, Dr. Niti discussed many options with me that were available, and we first started out with medication. Well, we went from one medication, and I didn't like it, so about a year later we switched to another medication, and I—I took... I got off of it myself. I started feeling better, I just was tired of the medication and it caused... it gave me headaches sometimes, I felt drowsy, it just wasn't a good feeling. My quality of life really wasn't the same as what I would like it to be.

About a year later, I came in for my annual checkup, but as I walked into the urology department, they had advertisements around the room of a technology that I wasn't con—wasn't really aware of until I had walked in the hospital that day. It was the water vapor therapy they were advertising. I went back to my room, and I'm very, very good at looking at the internet and researching all kinds of things and going to other doctors for advice, and the National Health Service in the UK—I'll look at their website and urology medical websites of the United States, the Mayo Clinic, this, that, and the other. And every place I went where they talked about this particular procedure, the water vapor therapy, or other procedures like TURP or other medications, this procedure came up on top every time. And when I looked at the people who had negative comments, the negative comments were very, very minimal compared to the amount of people who had taken the procedure.

So I felt comfortable, I didn't have any more questions. I went in to see Dr. Niti, he asked me what I thought, I told him that I'd done my research as I just explained to you, and we scheduled uh the procedure to—to be done.

The procedure itself, as Dr. Niti explained to me, was basically going to be 12 to 15 minutes. The length of time depends on uh how many bursts of the water vapor therapy have to take place, so my procedure was about 12 minutes—the actual time in—in the procedure room itself. Obviously preparation and aftercare, waiting to wake up from anesthesia, took a little bit longer. I—I actually woke up in the recovery room and I'm thinking, "I'm finished? Did we do anything?"

The procedure does require that after anywhere from four days to seven days afterwards, depending on—on the individual, you are required to wear a catheter. And the... wearing a catheter was a little bit uncomfortable, but other than having to deal with emptying a catheter bag periodically during the course of the day during the—the period of time I had to wear it, that was the only thing that created a problem maybe in my lifestyle during that short period of time. And it was—it was a very minimal discomfort wearing it, having it in. There was never any difficulty for me whatsoever.

At the point in time I got to probably two months, I was a new person. I could go to sleep at 10 o'clock and I could wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning, and—and rarely if I had to get up and go to the toilet, maybe one time. Now, if I consumed later in the evening, you know, a few beverages, you know, yes, maybe I might have to get up a second time, but that was only because I had consumed beverages late in the evening. And I think that is probably normal for most of us.

If—if you're looking to have a quality of life uh that's improved, where you can sleep through the night, whether you can feel rested, whether you want to be able to get on an airplane for a flight longer than six hours and know that you don't have to worry about going to the toilet, or a long car ride or a bus ride or a train ride, this is something that will help you a lot. I—as I said earlier also, for somebody my age, my sexual situation has also improved, so I'm happy about that.

I—I would suggest to anyone anywhere that having this procedure done here at Bangkok Pattaya Hospital with Dr. Niti is only going to be... do good things for those people who do so. And at least walk in and talk to the man, let him explain to you what it's all about. Dr. Niti is wonderful to communicate with. He talks about and provides more information than I've ever had any doctor provide for me, and I've been to doctors in many, many countries throughout the world. You do it, you'll be happy you did it.