Hear! Hear!

Last Wednesday morning, I woke up with a spinning sensation in my head. When I tried to sit up I just flopped back down like a rag doll. Eventually I was able to stand up and walk without falling. The sensation gradually eased off during the morning.

The same thing happened on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, the dizziness did not ease off at all and we decided I needed to see a doctor. Our Ebais is not open on weekends. We could have gone to the Grecia hospital but it can be chaos there, especially when one’s Spanish is not up to medical terminology standards.

We decided to call our Costa Rican friend, Minor. He is an EMT (emergency medical technician) and bilingual. I Whatsapp’d him and he replied within a very short time. Minor agreed that I needed attention soon and suggested we go to Clínica Médica Sanchez in Grecia. He knows Dr. Sanchez. Minor even called the clinic and got an appointment for me that same day.

This clinic is very impressive. The waiting area has super comfortable seating and there is an indoor atrium. The nurse came to get me to take my weight, height, blood pressure and heart rate. Back to the waiting area and soon Dr. Sanchez came for me and we went with him to his office. A plus - he is bilingual.

History and examination completed, Dr. Sanchez determined ear blockage was the cause of the vertigo. He wrote me up three prescriptions, one being ear drops. I was taken to a room that had two hospital beds and a really comfy recliner. Into the recliner I went, hooked up to an IV, covered with a blanket, lights dimmed and told to have a nap. Of course that didn’t happen.

About an hour later, I was unhooked from the IV. Instructions: no driving, no gym, back in a week for ear irrigation, and rest. The vertigo meds helped quite a bit but by Tuesday the continuous dizziness had returned. Back we went to see Dr. Sanchez.

This time he irrigated both ears and the results were fast. I was still dizzy but could hear much better and the pressure in my head had improved a lot. It took a few days to feel 100% back to normal.

I’m going to the gym tomorrow and driving myself there.

I highly recommend Clinica Medica Sanchez.

By the way: when you see a price such as 40,000 colones on the Clinica Medica Sánchez Facebook page, that currently translates to about USD $78.00 or CDN $108.00. In Canada, the rub is that it does not allow a public (Ebais) system plus a private (e.g. Sanchez) system to co-exist.