Is it really supposed to take 72 hours for a tick to begin feeding? The 72 hours in that link seems to be about whether it's within the window that prophylaxis would have an effect (although you seem to be acknowledging this?).
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 post exposure prophylactic treatment is actually only a single dose.
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.
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.