Cliffman:

I do believe that many people with SFN lead "normal" lives - but that doesn't mean that they are pain free, or that they are the same as they were before the disease.

One other thing that you need to remember as you read the posts here on this forum: The posters here are but a very tiny cross section of the millions of people world wide who have some type of PN. And, I suspect that most of the people who only have mild cases and are leading relatively normal lives aren't posting here. Neither are the ones who had PN due to treatable causes and have since been treated, healed up and returned to their former lives. Although I have no statistics to back it up, I think the posters here tend to be the ones that have the moderate to severe chronic conditions - not the mild cases.

I think someone once said: "Life with PN is like a box of really stale chocolates - they're all pretty bad, but some taste worse than others."

But seriously, it's really important to maintain a positive outlook. It will help you both physically and mentally to do so. Make sure you do as many of the things that "normal" people do as you can. That will keep you engaged with others, and engaged in your own life. (In my opinion, that's what normal life is.)