I was driving my truck on night and had to pull over with an acute bout of vertigo. I’m a physician and was not immediately alarmed, rather, annoyed. From that point on, every 4 or 5 minutes, I developed a sense of disequilibrium with occasional bouts of vertigo. This lasted every waking hour for more than 7 months. With the typical, “Physician, heal thyself,” mentality, I did NOT want to go through the typical route of over investigation so prominent in our current healthcare model.
At the point leading up to my initial onset of symptoms, I was drinking 1200 – 1500 mL of diet pop daily. I had been doing this for more than 20 years. I had increased my consumption to almost 3 liters of diet pop for about a 2 month time period leading up to my symptoms. As I had no other neurological signs or symptoms, I started looking to things like Aspartame. As an easy test, I discontinued use of all diet pops and anything sweetened with Aspartame. Over about 3 months, my symptoms went away. Not conclusive, but certainly welcome results.
About 2 months after my symptoms went away, I began drinking diet pops again. About 2 weeks after I began consumption of them, my symptoms returned at which point I ceased consumption all together. Within three days, my symptoms also went away. As I realize that this is, by no means, conclusive evidence of Aspartame toxicity, I personally believe it did. Mine is a simple “n of 1” study of which I was an unwilling participant, but I have NO signs or symptoms associated with the whatever was plaguing me, SINCE I discontinued use of Aspartame.
I just thought I’d share my experience with you.