Let me make myself clear....I never, ever smoked. I suggest to folks that, they don't need me to tell them to stop....and they don't.

I feel like I am saying, "I never inhaled".... Again I will say some things are best not said.

I don't drink as it makes me very sick. I can ocassionally tolerate a glass of wine, but seldom choose to. Now back in college, I had a few rip snorters, but hardly what I would consider the cause of neuropathy. Booze never agreed with me.

I have never been overweight, actually I was an endurance athlete, in general, cycling, so not a sport where I beat my body too badly.

I had to eat pretty well, or I could not do well in races, so I usually weighed my ideal weight...and took vitamins. I was a vegetarian for a while, but that didn't last too long.

I can't figure out what I did wrong, other than be born with 'bad genes'...yes, i will blame it on others.

I have worked in the medical system, so I see folks who smoke, drink or are overweight, and their problems are immediately attributed to their 'habits'. I once remember we had a 'drug addict' come into the clinic. I recognized she was not a addict, and her 'tracks' were actually from cutting...she was a person who cut herself....of course others blew her off calling her a "prostitute who used her money to buy drugs"....I was appalled at their reactions and explained that often cutters were abused as kids, and her scars were not needle tracks.......her complaints however, were valid and she had a mass, likely a cancer...how easy it would have been had the physician, whom I respect greatly, to blow her off....he told the staff, 'I don't care what she is she deserves care.' thanks to him she got it.

A thoughtful practitioner, sees beyond the fact that some one smokes, or drinks or has unmanaged diabetes, past the 'blame' and to the core of the issue. Things are not often that easy to sort out.

People can drink booze to treat pain. It happened in my family...I saw my dad and his brothers do just that.

Most smokers wish they had not started, and need a lot of support to quit.

Most diabetics wish they had done better with blood sugar control....and most people wish they had been able to maintain an ideal weight.....

Could these things cause or aggravate PN? You bet. Is it the only thing that could be causing the PN? NOPE...but if the patient wants help, and asks to stop unhealthy habits, they need support.

Again I have had none of these issues and still have PN....

perhaps I should light up a pack, down a fifth, eat a wedding cake all while jumping out of a perfectly good plane.

I think we should do what we can NOW to help our health. We all have to live with consequences of choices we make. I have ocassionally downed a half of a pan of brownies...'It was the need of the moment'.

That said, it is still wise for doctors to look beyond the obvious in all cases. Things are not always what they seem....and we as patients need to do what we can to improve our chances at health, and not expect miracles from medicine.

When my kids get mad at me for me telling them motherly advice, I tell them, 'Sorry that is my job as a mother'. As a health care provider, 'Sorry, that is my job, to tell folks to have healthy lifestyles'....oh and wear your seat belt too...that has nothing to do with PN, but, in I can tell you from personal experience, they save lives.