After a lifetime of health, in April of last year, I developed an onset of fatigue, headaches, muscle aches, joint aches, burning in my upper back, neck aches, numbness in my lower legs and feet, nerve pain (legs and lumbar), mental confusion, dizziness and depression.
By the end of August, I was in such severe pain I could hardly walk, and the lumbar pain had become so extreme that I couldn’t sit in a chair very long. I was taking 18+ Ibuprofen daily and was using a heating pad round the clock. I didn’t sleep well or on my right side, due to the nerve impulses which had begun shooting through my right leg.
The x-rays, MRI (cervical/lumbar), and blood tests all came back “normal.” After the EMG and nerve conduction tests, the official diagnosis was “peripheral neuropathy.” The neurologist either ignored or minimized the other symptoms of which I complained: debilitating fatigue, headaches, mental confusion, cold hands & feet. I felt totally lost and walked away with no concrete answers.
My sister-in-law, who many years ago was diagnosed with fibromyalgia (FMS (fibromyalgia)), kept suggesting I had the symptoms, so I kept researching that angle. I knew I had some of the symptoms of FMS (fibromyalgia), but some of my symptoms didn’t fit – if it was fibromyalgia, then something else had to be going on, too.
In December, while researching the net, I came across a list of symptoms which contained not only my complaints to the neurologist, but also, *on the same list,* were other ailments I’d also suffered for 3-5 years, yet never thought to associate with Aspartame: cloudy vision, loss of equilibrium, tinnitus, slurring of speech, tingling of the extremities. I was shocked. Here was one list with all the things I’d been suffering.
It was a list of symptoms of Aspartame poisoning. Reading further, I learned that Aspartame poisoning can worsen or mimic MS, FMS (fibromyalgia), Chronic Fatigue, Alzheimer’s and more, because it attacks the nervous system. Now it all made sense to me for the first time.
And no wonder I got sick!! I’d been drinking 3+ diet Pepsis daily since Aspartame was put into them – 13 years at least! My husband also had been consuming Aspartame daily for years as well, in Equal, and in such products as yogurt and ice cream; and, unbelievably, for nearly 2 years he’d had a bizarre hip ache and hamstring pull that wouldn’t heal, no matter what he tried. Turns out, it was Aspartame, too!!
The reason we both know this is that on Jan 1. 1997, my husband and I gave up all Aspartame-laced products, and within days most of our muscle aches and pains, and my nerve pain, subsided considerably!!! My dizziness, cloudy vision, and “foggy thinking” have improved noticeably, too.
It’s only been 5 weeks, and my husband feels like a new person. I feel better, too, but I still have the leg numbness, tinnitus, and some dizziness, but since it supposedly takes over 60 days for major improvements, I am hopeful.
I will never knowingly consume Aspartame again, and I tell everyone I know what happened to me and to quit consuming this poison!!