Time to euthanize?

Hello! Just wanting your opinions please. My cat is sick, her doctor can't figure out why. She spent two weeks with him getting fluids, steroids, and every antibiotic known to man. She's had xrays done, blood smears, blood tests, and even an fever of unknown  origin panel, and everything has come back negative. Her doctor finally decided to try doxycycline and she went 3 days with no fever, so I brought her home. 1st day home was great. Almost back to her normal self. After that, she went back downhill and is still currently lethargic and won't eat or drink and it's been two days. My question is, how much longer should I give the Doxy before putting her to sleep? She's so pitiful and this is working on her 3rd week of having this. I hate seeing her suffer, but I don't want to give up if the doxy helps.

Hi- I'm sorry that you find yourself in this position and wish that I knew a good answer to this question.  One thing I have noticed about the case is that you are not intending for me to follow it;  if she's had xrays done, blood smears, blood tests etc they won't have shown nothing.  They might have shown that a lot of things are within normal range, or that the chest is clear etc but they will have ruled out a lot of things that might have been causing a problem, out.   A good question for your vets at this point is, what havent you ruled out?  What things that they can treat, could it possibly still be?   Have they ruled out pancreatitis, for example?  What is left on their list?

Having established this, you have a hard decision to make.  I will not muddy the waters by putting a figurenin days on the Doxy;  that is your vets job, who knows the case.

How Do We Know when it is time to put our pet to sleep? - is an article I wrote a few years ago that is still available in the blog (use the search bar) and may be very helpful.

You can also type 'euthanasia' into the search bar, which brings up a lot of helpful articles with more modern terminology.

I think the main message is, that euthanasia is a very personal, subjective decision (no clear right or wrong) and it is not supposed to be easy.   I have known more people say 'I think we left it too long' than 'I think we did it too soon.'  At the end of the day, you and your cat are the people who matter here.  All you can do is the best you can with wht you feel and what you know at the time.   I hope that something there helps.