Two days late, but starting my 13th year without spirits (4385 days).

Congratulations, my friend!!!

4717 days sober.

I'm opening a car dealership here in town...I love my life

13 years sober today...woohoo!!

I have no pain, no weakness, I can jog (not run) and I consider myself healed from PN. I can do most anything and my all my dreams are coming true.

Here is to another 13!! (clinks glass of soda)

Ice out...

congratulations!

4779 days sober. It's labour day here in the USA and I am grilling steak on my back deck and thanking God that He kept me alive to enjoy such a season in life! Woohoo!!!

I'll be in TN this time next month and in the Bahamas the month after that so please excuse my tardiness for the remainder of this year...

Excellent. I'll try to follow your rhythm: for me it's 4466 days now. I missed the opportunity to report 4444.

2023 was hell - unrelated to booze or PN, 2024 is turning out to be a great year. You just never know.

4815 days sober.

Just got back from TN and it was amazing!!!

Nassau and Key West here I come

Heheh, I was just going to post assuming you were still in TN!


I'm at day 4500.

Hello, i'm new here. I wanted to thank the contributors of this thread for giving me some hope. I am 46M and have had symptoms of PN for the past 3.5 years. I am a successful professional with a family, but I did my fair share of drinking and I think that is likely what gave me PN. I drank a lot in college, then continued partying in my 20's as my industry is/was very into drinking culture. Kept it going and became a daily drinker in my early 30's and then covid hit and I was drinking 5-7 drinks a night and double that on weekends. My feet started hurting and I quickly decided I was getting PN by reading Dr. Google. My first neurologist didn't agree, but then again, I wasn't really honest with the amounts I was drinking on a regular basis.
Fast forward 2 years of reduced drinking, but still having on and off pain symptoms in the balls of my feet, I decided to quit drinking in January of this year (2024). I have seen a couple more neurologists and both say that i have mild PN and could be idiopathic or due to alcohol. I still have ankle reflexes and perfect strength but I had sensory losses to sharp and temperature and vibration in both feet. The problem is, my PN symptoms have continued to get worse and worse despite the fact that I have eliminated alcohol. I am 9 months sober and I feel like the symptoms continue to gradually get worse. I am basically only comfortable when sleeping at night or when I have no socks on and i'm just lounging around. Any time I walk, it is very uncomfortable. The balls of my feet feet like they have a combo of numb spots as well as painful spots. The pain and numbness fluctuate quite a bit and are very dependent on stress and anxiety. I never thought I suffered from stress or anxiety but what is going on in my feet is driving me crazy and stressing me out. I want to believe that I can only get better from here, but I feel like I should already feel improvement given my 9 months of sobriety. Shoes are terrible to wear, and walking barefoot is even worse. I have a pair of slippers that I can wear around my house that give me some relief, but that's it. I have also had a bunch of other symptoms like burning on the tops of my toes, allodynia all over my feet, and overall pain and stiffness in my feet/toes.

I guess I'm just writing to vent. Hoping that I will slowly improve over time. I have heard that peripheral nerves do heal over a long period of time (1-4 years) so I still have some hope. I am really trying to work on the mental side of things because I think the amount of worrying and catastrophizing i'm doing is only adding fuel to the fire. Gabapentin doesn't help me, and I thought Lyrica did but i've gone off of it for a few weeks and there were no changes. I am reluctant to try a SSRI or SSNRI but I think I should probably cave in and do it....

I have seen people write about getting better over time and I am hoping that I'm young enough and in good enough health to get better. I am in very good shape and my blood tests were all very clear. No diabetes (although when I quit drinking I started eating WAY more ice cream!!!). What I find very strange is the amount of impact stress has on my symptoms. That doesn't seem normal to me and makes me think that my symptoms could be caused or at least exacerbated by anxiety. Would be curious to hear if anyone else felt improvement by working on their stress and anxiety....?

Thank you for reading! Thank you to all those have posted their improvement!!