Only if you have a shit doctor. I've had to be an advocate for medical care of family members, and I've had a few doctors actually compliment me on being an engaged advocate for their treatment. You still want to be respectful and open minded, but some basic study of the condition/treatment/lingo can go a long way to them seeing you as an informed patient they are willing to work with.
My comment was more along the lines of if you know you need Doxycycline for a tick bite and they're holding off, you can't just come out and request it. They'll play the 'expert', defending their ego that they aren't working as a mere rubric-following pill-gatekeeper, and tell you how they know better, even though they hand prescriptions out like candy in other contexts. Rather you need to emphasize the symptoms you do have, equivocate rather than ruling things out (eg the tick could have been on me all day or even multiple days), and focus on the less probable bad outcomes that you're ultimately trying to avoid.
Well, that's a problem. If it's only been one day, they aren't going to give it to you. It's only supposed to be past 72 hours. Of course they're not going to listen and they'll argue if you're pushing something beyond the guidelines. If you frame it differently, like you don't know if it's been on there for days, then they're more likely to work with you.
I've actually had a similar tick issue for a child. There was no way of knowing for sure how long it was attached until tested in the lab. The doctor was still willing to prescribe the doxycycline when we explained the situation. There's also a state lab that will test ticks and give a report on whether the tick tests positive for about a half dozen diseases and also tell you how long it was attached. The doctor's lab could only test the tick for Lyme. He was genuinely interested in learning about this other lab from me even though I was not a medical professional.
https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/tickbornediseases/tick-bite-prophy...
https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/tickbornediseases/tick-bite-prophy...
In my case the doc asked if the tick was engorged, to which I responded that I didn't know - I'm not a biologist that studies ticks and can't give such a judgement as a nice tidy answer. Which is getting back to my point about expectations - if the treatment was amputating my leg, then I'd want some professional judgement calls. But given that the output of the medical system was going to be either (doxycycline and blood draw for lab, or nothing), I'm going to push towards the former option given the lack of expected harm and overall lack of attention outside of these scarce 10 minute visits.
FWIW I think I got a full course of doxycycline, perhaps just to avoid breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria rather than for the tick bite itself.
The 72 hours in the link is from time of removal. The 72 hours I reference is how long it typically takes for a tick to regurgitate into a host (it has to feed for some time before it regurgitates). The article referenced it as being engorged. The correct answer is in the middle. It takes 72 hours for the tick to regurgitate, but it could technically crawl off a dead host and on to you. But it's harder to identify if it's engorged. These facts led us to use the doxycycline while the lab confirmed if the tick was positive and how long it was feeding.
I've had other misread tests for my kids, saying they had strep when they had RSV. But some urgent care doctors have been really good. I think the ratio is changing in the wrong direction though.
Any nowadays I can't see ANY doctor outside of an ER or urgent care visit.
"They are all shit in my experience."
I don't know, maybe your area is bad, maybe you've had limited experiences, maybe you're a statistical anomaly. Or maybe the problem is on the other side of the relationship.