pharmacy and doctor Spanish when you feel awful

The doctor is often inside the pharmacy, and costs almost nothing

This is the part of the system that surprises visitors most. Chains like Farmacias Similares and Farmacias del Ahorro run a consultorio adyacente - a small consulting room attached to the shop, staffed by a licensed doctor, usually costing somewhere around fifty pesos, no appointment needed. For a sore throat or a stomach that has turned on you, that is the normal first stop, not an emergency room.

Which means the Spanish you need is symptom Spanish, not medical Spanish. Me duele plus the body part covers most of it. Tengo fiebre, tengo tos, me siento mal del estómago. Resist the urge to translate clinical English - estoy nauseoso is grammatical, but nobody says it. Tengo náusea is what comes out of a Mexican mouth.

The questions to ask back are about dosage, because that is where mistakes happen when you feel terrible: ¿cada cuánto lo tomo? and ¿con comida? Plenty of things that sit behind a counter elsewhere are available directly here, but antibiotics have required a prescription since 2010, so ¿necesito receta? is a real question with a real answer.