idiopathy

Very good.

So there is a very good terminology in medical science that is called as idiopathic.

Idiopathic means we don't know it yet.

I thought it had something to do with idiots.

No, idiopathic means

It's reaching a comfortable answer and stopping, and it's the engine behind that toe-walking conversation from episode one.

Idiopathic is only allowed to be the answer after you've earned it by ruling everything else out.

My counterhabit is a question I stole from a fellow clinician.

Before I settle, I make myself ask, what else could this be and what have I not looked at yet? As for overconfidence, overconfidence is the meta-trap and the one that protects all the others because it whispers that traps are for other clinicians.

Normally, you have an allergic reaction to a bee sting or something, it happens within minutes.

But with this, you could eat a piece of bacon for breakfast and your throat doesn't start closing off until the afternoon, and so you blame lunch, or doctors just call it spontaneous or idiopathic anaphylaxis.

Idiopathic is just doctor speak for we have no idea what the cause is.

The delay is because the alpha-gal is thought to be absorbed along with the fat in the meat, given that the allergic reaction occurs four to five hours after meat ingestion, corresponding to the peak absorption time of the fat from the digestive tract.

What makes it even more difficult to diagnose is that the majority of victims experience only occasional overt reactions despite regular meat consumption.