Idiopathic Issues

There has been a lot of controversy lately about the microchip industry for pets in the US. There is no single registry for all microchip numbers and not all microchips can be read by a single microchip reader. There is also the issue of owners not properly updating their information with the microchip company. Sometimes that is simply an issue of not knowing how a microchip actually works. There is a misconception that microchips have GPS capabilities and will help the owner locate the dog or cat when it is lost.

Written By: Bradford P Smith, DVM, DACVIM, Professor Emeritus

When I was a fairly new veterinarian back in the early 70’s, I had a case that really caught my attention. A valuable 10 month Holstein bull had been recently shipped from the east coast to California, and it had developed fever, oral erosions on the dental pad, severe diarrhea, and weight loss. Frankly it looked as though it planned to die. The bull had leukopenia and was positive for BVDV. I informed the owner and then treated him symptomatically with fluids and antimicrobials, plus soft palatable feed. By some miracle he improved over the next 10 days and I kept the owner informed. Finally he looked so good that I called to tell them he was ready to go home. As I walked back into the barn, there was the bull lying dead in his stall! Calling the owner back to tell him the bull had died, only 20 minutes after I had told them he was better, was one of the most excruciating calls I have ever had to make. Our pathologists determined that he had a large cardiac infarct, which probably had caused a fatal arrhythmia. A new one on me!

Hello and welcome to Idiopathic Issues!  

Idiopathic: relating to or denoting any disease or condition that arises spontaneously or for which the cause is unknown.

I went into the veterinary medical profession excited about working with animals and performing tests and finding answers. Every patient had a mystery ready to be solved, a disease pathway to be explored, or a laboratory adventure to be taken. And sure, some days you feel like a superhero solving crimes against the body. Other days you just want to know why, why did this happen to my patient? The truth is, you are going to encounter an idiopathic diagnosis way more often in practice than you might like. The answer is often, no one knows. Kind of like no one knows why males have nipples, or why dogs eat grass or why some people don’t like chocolate. So weird. Our goal is always to find an answer, to fix our patients or at least give their owners peace of mind.