I just found this website and thought I would send you my story.
I grew up in the home of my grandfather who was a diabetic. As a result, the only sodas in our home were diet and as this was back in the 70’s and early to mid-80’s they were sweetened with saccharine. I used to drink to least one to two 12 oz. cans of diet 7-UP a day and I couldn’t stand the overly sweet taste of regular soda.
In approximately 1985 or 1986 (I believe the same year 7-UP switched to Aspartame) I started experiencing debilitating migraine headaches. These migraines would begin with me seeing little flashes of light (I believe it is called and aura) and then such extreme pain that I could not work or even move. At the time I had also started taking oral contraceptives and my gynecologist thought that was the problem. I promptly quit taking the contraceptives and the migraines continued daily, usually lasting for several hours each day.
Because ceasing the contraceptives had no effect on the migraines, my gynecologist thought maybe I had a vascular problem (his code name for an aneurism) or a tumor. He decided it would be best that I go to a neurologist for further testing.
Fortunately my insurance provider required a return trip to my family doctor before going to yet another specialist and my family doctor was a very practical man who understood that many migraines are actually reactions to food.
For the next month I was placed on an allergy diet. Basically I was allowed to eat nothing except boiled potatoes or plain rice. I was allowed no coffee, tea, wine, chocolate, cheese, and absolutely NO SODA, diet or otherwise.
Within 4 days the migraines stopped and I was told to add one food at a time to my diet and see what happened. Lo and behold the only thing that triggered my migraines was the diet 7-UP. At first it made no sense, because I had been drinking diet 7-UP for years, and then I discovered that they had replaced the saccharine with this new so called wonder sweetener NutraSweet. I then conducted one personal experiment with NutraSweet and that was to eat a breath mint sweetened with it. At the time I had been given a wonderful drug called Ergostat that would stop the migraine if taken when I had an aura. So I ate the breath mint and within 5 minutes I had an aura, took my medication and blocked the migraine.
I have never purposefully eaten anything with NutraSweet in it since and the only migraines I have had in the past 20+ have occurred when I have accidentally consumed NutraSweet. I feel lucky that my family doctor had the good sense to suggest I had an allergy or food reaction and not just ordered a battery of tests that would have found nothing. Because of this I did not continue using the poison and I have sounded off to anyone who would listen about what a vile horrible product it is.