Aspartame Anti-Testimonials© #040 – Seizures, Rash

I can personally tell you that aspartame is like a poison to me. I was lucky enough to have found out about this many years ago. Shortly after I was married I discovered that some weird episodes I was having were actually a form of seizure (or absence really). After reflection I now realize that I had been having these episodes for a long time, but as they generally occurred in the morning it was not discovered until I got married and my husband witnessed them. At first, I was terrified. I thought I had some sort of mental illness and I would tell no one, not even my family. I did finally tell one friend (who obviously wasn’t) and she made me feel as crazy as I thought I was. I began to get worse and had episodes more frequently and later into the day, so that I was having them at work, etc. I also developed a horrible rash, which almost made me lose my job as the whole entire office was afraid I had some kind of contagious disease. I also almost lost my life as I had an episode while driving and took out a telephone box, someone’s fence and almost ran into a parked car, before I actually got back on the road. I didn’t realize what had happened and went on home. When I got a huge bruise on my leg and my husband looked at our vehicle which was mangled we were so scared we immediately retraced my trip home from work. We found a state trooper writing it up as a hit and run. We told him what happened and as a result I lost my driver’s license. Luckily for me, a distant family relative had a terrible reaction to aspartame as well. She would be catatonic for days at a time. She is fine now that she is off of aspartame. I was dieting heavily and so I decided it couldn’t hurt to cut out the aspartame and see what happened. This was back in approx 1994-1995. Immediately the rash started going away, but it took 90 days for my seizure like symptoms to cease. It was almost like going through a drug withdrawal. The last day I had a seizure I was practically catatonic. I was out of it almost all day. From that day on I have not had one single recurrence of any symptom. I also have not touched aspartame in that time. I have read a few of the comments from people who do not believe that aspartame is dangerous. It does not seem to effect some people, but that does not mean that it is not dangerous to others. I also understand that some would like scientific proof that it is dangerous before they will believe it. And that is their opinion. But you also have to remember that there are lots of diseases that nobody in the world knew about until one person came down with them. I think everyone who has been affected by aspartame would LOVE scientific proof just as much as the skeptics. That doesn’t mean we are stupid for trying to improve our quality of health and life by cutting out aspartame now. My husband, daughter and I all just stay away from aspartame. We also stay away from all artifical sweeteners even though I am not sure if any such as saccharin, splenda, or stevia would affect me. It’s just not worth it to me to test it out. As years have passed, I have come to realize that there were lots of other symptoms I was having that correspond to aspartame use such as nightmares, etc. If aspartame doesn’t affect you than I am very glad. As for those of you who have some permanent illness from aspartame I couldn’t be sorrier. I just feel extremely blessed that I was able to come out of my situation with no noticeable side effects. I was finally able to get my license back, but only after going to a neurologist and having an MRI which came out clear. The neurologist I went to said he believed my story that the aspartame is what was causing my problems, but unfortunately he said there was no way to test for aspartame sensitivity at this time. So he suggested the MRI as a means to show the state that I did not have epilepsy or some similar type of seizure disorder. Maybe we will never find the exact correlation between aspartame and the health problems people have been having. But if you are having health problems, consider it as an option to just discontinue use of the aspartame. aspartamefree@hotmail.com