Hi, @bluesky222

I've been reading your exchange with @njed with much interest. Although there are variances, it appears we're all roughly in the same category of folks with PN.

I, though, was a drinker. Heavy? That's debatable. I'm inclined to say yes, I was a heavy drinker; however, I (1) never lost a job, (2) never got into a fistfight, (3) never got a DUI, (4) et cetera. I was one of those wild partiers who always got home safely.

Although today I've not had a drink in over 30 years, my Jack Daniels career began when I was not yet legal (my best buddy was legal, so he did the buying). College, then the Army (two tours overseas: Korea & Vietnam) served to stoke my drinking, as did post-grad work once I returned stateside. I've spent my working life in the theater, where drinking was––for most of us––just something we did (after a day's rehearsal or an evening performance).

Finally, I quit drinking. I was somewhere in my late 40s or early 50s. I detail all this to underscore my surprise about a year ago when I sitting with my neurologist's MA, going over the results of a recent brain MRI. (We still hadn't figured out what I had was PN.) Just as we were about to wrap us, the MA asked, almost apologetically, "Any chance you were a heavy drinker?" That floored me! I hadn't had a drink in 30+ years. How could she have known? "It leaves a permanent 'shadow' on your brain," she explained. Neither of us jumped to a PN conclusion. But today I wonder: Was my long-ago drinker the parent cause of my PN?

Ah, the mystery of it all! 😀

Cheers!
Ray