The term idiopathic qualifies in medicine a disease that has no known cause. Thus, it defines itself, without being the consequence or the complication of another pathology.

The word idiopathic belongs to the lexical field of nosography, a discipline which classifies diseases. This word comes from ancient Greek, idiopatheia, which means “sickness that one experiences for oneself.” “

In medical jargon, idiopathic is an adjective that most often qualifies a disease, a symptom or even a pathological condition, which has no causes uncovered by a diagnostic workup, even a thorough one. A disease will be said to be “idiopathic” if it exists in itself, without being linked to another condition, by a link of cause or consequence.

Consequently, an idiopathic pathology can only be treated symptomatically, that is to say by treating the symptoms one by one, without trying to find their cause.

The antonym of the term idiopathic is “etiological”. An etiological disease is a disease of which we know the cause.

Obviously, it will be easier for doctors to treat an etiologic disease than an idiopathic disease. Being able to trace the cause allows medicine to treat a pathology or disease more quickly and effectively. By treating only the symptoms, the patient cannot be completely cured, but temporarily relieved.

In medicine, as in philosophy, we may have to ask ourselves many existential questions, such as “why?” “Or the” How? On diseases that befell people, when we could never have anticipated by seeing, for example, their lifestyle or their medical history.

For example, colon or liver cancer can start in a person who has an irreproachable lifestyle; while his neighbor or even his brother could lead a life of excess and never contract this same disease. Unfortunately, there is no known reason for all the pathologies that can occur in human beings, whether in the field of genetic inheritance or their way of life. It is the injustice of medicine. So a patient who asks his doctor, “Why did I catch this disease?” “, In the case of an idiopathic disease, the doctor will unfortunately answer:” I don’t know! Although this answer may seem shocking or unsatisfactory when one believes that medicine is an exact science.

When we do not know the causes of a disease, we can only treat its symptoms. Unlike an etiological disease (the cause of which we know), we cannot offer a specific treatment, which would be more effective than simple symptomatic treatment. Etiologic treatment, in contrast, is the best answer that can be offered to a patient. For example, in order to treat anemia, one may not find the cause of this disease, despite extensive investigation. The patient will then be treated by simply taking iron-based medication; but this treatment will only be temporary and unsatisfactory, since the cause cannot be found. However, anemia can also mean that the person is losing blood, which can be worrying.

The doctor, by performing a fibroscopy (examination of the esophagus and stomach) may arrive at a diagnosis going back to the cause of the anemia: a duodenal ulcer (in the stomach) which is the cause of the bleeding . The etiological treatment to be applied will then be an anti-acid drug to treat the ulcer, and thus stop the bleeding and stop the anemia.

Idiopathic treatment is therefore very disabling in the long term for the patient, since he is not free of his disease.

This is the entire struggle of the medical profession, facing symptoms or diseases whose causes we often do not know. Doctors take days, sometimes weeks and months to carry out analyzes, check-ups and medical investigations in order to determine the causes of patients’ illnesses, which would allow them to finally cure them permanently and definitively. But, since a doctor is not a god, and medicine is not an exact science, there are times when you can only deal with symptoms. Sometimes patients themselves find specific causes or treatments in themselves, seeking alternative medicine or psychological introspection.