My Experiences with Healthcare in Latin America

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows me, my first visit to a doctor in Latin America was to a…

Urologist.

Stumbling into his office over a dozen years ago, tail between my legs, metaphorically speaking. Errr, kinda. Dunno. Maybe.

Not gonna dig too deep into that one, but all ended well.

Fast forward to 2026 and I racked up more than my fair share of interesting experiences with healthcare in Latin America.

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Antibiotic Ass Injections in Colombia 🇨🇴

My throat hurt. Drinking water caused me to wince. Eating was painful. I figured it was strep throat or something like that, although my extracurricular activities at the time caused some concern.

Ya tu sabes.

I was also fairly broke. So I decided instead of going to a doctor, I would just hit the pharmacy and see what they’d give me. I needed drugs and not the fun kind.

And after all, I was living in Colombia. You didn’t need a prescription for anything back in the day.

The bootleg pharmacist with little to no training gave me a blank stare as she tried to understand my semi-functional Spanish.

She nodded her head like she understood, then made a recommendation…

El Matrimonio

El Matrimonio is an injection. They take you to a back room of the pharmacy, whip out a large needle, and tell you to drop your pants and spread your cheeks. Just kidding, kind of.

The whole process feels quite third-world. No doctors. No prescriptions. Just a needle filled with drugs you know nothing about.

But I was desperate, so I went with it.

I nodded yes, paid $7 USD, and was taken to the back room. My pasty white ass glistened in the light as the pharmacist injected me with El Matrimonio.

It was painful.

El Matrimonio isn’t a small injection. They fill up a big ass syringe with all sorts of liquids. The injection lasts almost a minute.

Then she pulled the needle out and said, “Ya!” and walked off. 10/10 service.

I felt incredible for 24 hours. I couldn’t feel a damn thing. My throat felt 100%. I had energy. My joints even felt fantastic.

A few days later, all of my symptoms had come back. I felt like death. I swore to myself I was done with antibiotic ass injections.

It was time to see a real doctor.

To make a long story short…

I went to an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) specialist at Valle del Lili in Cali, Colombia — considered one of the “best” hospitals in Latin America.

Editor’s Note: it is NOT.

We did some labs. Went back. He didn’t have a clue. Just prescribed me some antibiotics and went on his way.

The antibiotics didn’t work. I ended up flying back to the US, seeing a doctor, getting new labs, and within 48 hours the doctor called me:

“You have mono in your tonsils. They need to be taken out.”

I laughed, as it didn’t seem like a complex diagnosis, but the Colombian doctors couldn’t figure it out.

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Deathly Ill in Paraguay 🇵🇾

It hurt to open my eyes. Any light caused severe pain.

I would wake up in the morning, stumble to the kitchen for a Gatorade, bring it to the shower, and not turn the lights on.

Then proceed to take a 30-minute shower coughing up phlegm in colors I didn’t know phlegm came in.

It was absolutely disgusting.

My Paraguayan friend Guille came to my apartment after I didn’t respond to texts for 4-5 days. He looked at me and burst out laughing, “Broooo! You look like shit!”

I know, Guille. I know.

He helped me get to the doctor. I wouldn’t have been able to get there myself.

The Paraguayan doctor said it wasn’t bacterial and gave me a bunch of anti-virals, anti-inflammatories, and basically said good luck.

I asked what I had.

She did not know, but offered an exceptionally reassuring comment:

“We still don’t know what it is, but the hospitals are overrun and a lot of people are dying.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence, doc.

I didn’t leave my apartment for another week after the doctor appointment. To this day, it's still the sickest I've ever been. My Dad almost booked a flight down to come get me.

A couple weeks passed and I was better, but nothing near 100% healthy. Still struggling to breathe, still coughing up nastiness every morning.

I went back to the same doctor, begged for a “Z-Pack” and she gave it to me even though she said it wouldn’t help because it was not bacterial.

I was 100% again in three days.

The “Z-Pack” worked like a charm, which seemed odd as the doctor was insistent that an antibiotic wouldn’t help.

Oh, and…

This happened in the middle of 2019, a time when some Chinese started moving to Paraguay. About 6-8 months later, Covid changed everyone’s lives.

I didn’t think much of it until I started hearing about “Z-Packs” being helpful to fight Covid. I remembered how the doctor in Paraguay said it would do nothing and it cleared me up instantly.

My thesis? They may have been using Paraguay as testing grounds for the virus.

Or it could have been some random tropical virus most likely caused by all the flooding in Paraguay…

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Breaking Out in Hives in Panama 🇵🇦

I was injecting “Chinese peptides” for a couple months.

I'd done stem cells for my hurt knee already and was doing everything I could to avoid surgery.

The peptides had been helping. I was progressing in rehab and starting to do explosive movements again.

But after an injection, I started to feel weird.

My skin started to itch all over my body. Breathing became a bit difficult. I felt a bit lightheaded.

I yelled at my girl, who was pregnant at the time, to come check on me. She walked into the room I was using as an office and gasped as she saw my back.

I was completely covered in hives.

“Amor!! I think we need to take you to the hospital.”

Yes, baby.

We drive to The Panama Clinic, one of the nicest hospitals in Central America. Straight to the emergency room.

I’m really struggling to breathe at this point. The hives are turning into welts. It’s pretty bad.

We get to the front desk at the emergency room and I just take my shirt off and show the girl working my back. She gasps like my girl did.

She calls a doctor to come instantly. I give her my credit card, as my girl handles the paperwork.

I’m hooked up to an IV within five minutes.

The doctor was a young Chinese guy who couldn’t speak English, but spoke fluent Spanish. He knew exactly what was going on, even though he had no clue about peptides.

The diagnosis? Histamine reaction.

The IV drugs started to work quickly. I fell asleep as the nurses monitored me. My girl by my side.

I woke up 4-5 hours later, all hives gone. I was breathing fine again. Felt 100%.

The Chinese doctor came back in and explained that I might not want to take peptides anymore. He also stressed to keep a bottle of Benadryl on hand in case this ever happens again.

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My Experiences with Healthcare in Latin America | Overall

A half-trained pharmacist gives you an antibiotic ass injection in Colombia. A young Chinese doctor in Panama damn near saves your life.

Same region. Different planet.

What I tell anyone moving (not visiting) down here:

Vet the hospital in your city before you need it. The “best in LatAm” rankings mean nothing. Keep international insurance that lets you fly out when things get weird. Med-Evac matters. Keep a US doctor on speed dial for the stuff your local one can’t figure out.

The pharmacy ass injection era is over for me. The Panama Clinic is one Uber away now.

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