What is Idiopathic?
Idiopathic is a medical term which is used to describe a condition which has no known cause. When a patient’s case is described as idiopathic, it means that the doctor does not know what caused the condition. This can be problematic, since sometimes identifying the cause of a condition is part of the process of finding an appropriate treatment. Idiopathic conditions can also be very frustrating for medical personnel, as lack of understanding about a cause makes it hard to prevent recurrence of the condition or future cases in other patients. Some people joke that idiopathic comes from “idiot,” as in “the doctor is such an idiot that he or she can’t even figure out what caused this.” In fact, the term comes from the Greek words idios, or “one’s own,” and pathos, or suffering. While it might be tempting to blame the doctor for not being able to figure out what is causing a medical problem, some diseases really do seem to arise spontaneously, with no known explanation or cause, and berati
