Health History.
No major illnesses or need for medical treatment in the first 26 years of my life (except for usual childhood illnesses, such as chicken-pox).
I was a regular consumer of diet-sodas, such as Diet Coke, for about 15 years, averaging around 2 litres/day during this period. On some days this might easily have been 3-4 litres.
Health problems began in Sept 2002, with occasional symptoms at first, but had become more chronic and debilitating by Xmas of that year. Early symptoms included persistent vague light-headedness/dizziness, which sometimes feels like motion sickness ( I had suffered a brief episode of this back in 1999, but it resolved itself within a few days), and also some night-time heart palpitations (hence why I’ve been stuck on cardiology’s patient list ever since!). Further additional symptoms have been tachycardia, excessive fatigue, occasional hot flashes and night-sweats, intermittent “mental fog” and loss of cognitive abilities, classic migraines and also strange visual disturbances.
These disturbances include weird “after-images” of everything I see, the shimmering of lined patterns and also the small dark spots and bright flashes reported by others. I also appear to have far more eye-floaters than usual and my eyes themselves often look tired and swollen. There have been periods during the last 18 months when I have felt bad and periods when I have felt very bad! My recent abstention (2+1/2 weeks now) from Aspartame has brought the only signs of remission during this whole time. The tired eyes, fatigue and mental fog have particularly improved, as have the dizziness and visual effects to some extent.