--that a significant fraction of those with small fiber syndromes for whom no direct cause could be found (that is to say, labelled idiopathic) might well be suffering from autoimmune processes that our science was simply insufficiently advanced to identify.

There has been some work going on, especially with the human genome advances, on identifying more of these autoimmune mechanisms. It hasn't advanced very far as of yet, but I am hopeful, as most of the specific autoantibodies to components of peripheral nerve that are currently known were unknown even thirty years ago.