One morning when I was on an island in Thailand, I woke up and my ear was throbbing. I couldn’t hear, and the whole side of my head was hot. Nobody likes going to the doctor in Thailand, and I had to worry about whether or not I’d be able to communicate with mine.

Here’s a breakdown of how I handled it.

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I woke up in my hostel room at the diving center in Koh Tao, Thailand. I’d been sharing a room with a few girls that I had gotten really close with, and I told them that I couldn’t hear out of my ear. Fortunately (for me, not her), one of the girls had broken a toe earlier in the week. Fortunate because she knew all about the medical system in Thailand. She also had travel insurance and I did not.

As an American, my first thought was, ‘Well shit. This is going to cost me an arm and a leg. And perhaps an ear.” A quick google search told me that Thailand does not have social health, so I would have to pay for my services upfront. Last-minute procedures are never cheap.

At about 10:45, I decided that I had no choice but to walk to the clinic. Lucky for me, there was one about a 10-minute walk away from the dive center.

Going to the Doctor in Thailand

I arrived just before 11 and saw the doctor immediately. I filled out a form and told him what was wrong. He used an otoscope to check out my ear and we chatted about diving for a few minutes. Then, he put oil into my ear and walked out of the room. He came back in when he heard me say, “ugh”.

“Dizzy?”

“Yes.”

“Ok no problem.” Walks away.

10 minutes later, he had me lie on my back and put a little bowl under my ear. He used a squeeze bottle to flush my ear out and cleared the blockage that had caused a minor infection.

I left the room and felt like I could hear EVERYTHING. The nurse gave me antibiotic drops and checked me out.

The damage?

$39. I put it on my credit card and walked home. The whole experience took 45 minutes and $39. That’s it. I stayed out of the water for the next couple of days and everything was fine.

I wish there was a more climactic end to this story, but I suppose the takeaway is that not all doctors are scary and expensive and take up a bunch of time. In fact, I’d rather go to the doctor in Thailand than spend 2 hours just in the waiting room in the US.

Have you ever been to a doctor abroad? How was it?