Thank you to everyone who has been contributing to this thread and is being so helpful. I really appreciate it, even if I don't totally understand it all.

My mother has rheumatoid arthritis and doctors have told me that the descendants of people with RA tend to have very obscure illnesses like this one, although to have PN isn't that common. And my neurologist said it doesn't really matter so much because the treatment for all the neuropathies is mostly the same. I never knew my father till I was grown up and he died two years later, but I know he had lots of trouble with his legs and feet. He was an alcoholic, though, and had been in a logging accident in his teens that broke both his legs so I assumed that was what was wrong with them.