I have recently had a nightmare three years from NutraSweet (Aspartame). I stopped sleeping – when I did sleep it was in 90 minute blocks, which had something to do with REM sleep intervals apparently. I might go 3 nights without sleep, then sleep just 90 minutes the 4th night. No matter how tired I was, I couldn’t sleep during the day either. As well as being constantly tired, I developed tinnitus, so loud I couldn’t hear myself think, and this exacerbated the sleep problem. I had a kind of inner shuddering all the time – like a fridge motor cycling – but this was invisible to others. I had palpitations, hot flushes, cold shivers, I felt like all the nerves in my body jumped every 30 seconds or so. I changed doctors, I saw heart specialists and neurologists, and I even had a CT scan. I had weird rashes and broke out in a chicken-pox like skin condition. I’d get loud noises in my head like when my amplifier was malfunctioning. I had excruciating joint pains, and thought I was going down the family road of arthritis much sooner, and it amplified my back and wrist pain and wouldn’t let me lie in any position for long when trying to sleep.
I read an article about MS and got even more worried, as that sounded like me. I stressed out even more because I began to believe that no-one I saw was competent to diagnose what was wrong with me, or would take me seriously long enough to do so. I’d seen naturopaths – one won my respect for her iridology by telling me about my nerves jumping, without me telling her about it. Her herbs helped a little, but nothing helped me sleep. I tried Reiki and spiritual healing, and slept those nights. I’ve meditated for years, but in my state it became almost impossible, so I had no way of safely reducing the stress that became worse the longer this went on.
Six weeks ago, I decided that I must have changed something vital those three years ago and began working through my memory. Eventually I came to the time when my daughter and I went to Weight Watchers. On WW, a measure of juice, a serving of fruit, something more solid when you’re hungry! So instead of juice we started drinking Diet Coke or other diet soft drinks – in a family who seldom used soft drinks of any kind. Never more than one can per day, each. At WW, and on any weight reduction diet I’ve ever read, the “light” versions are always recommended. I’m not blaming WW, but this was the big change I had made that lost me three years of my life. Six weeks ago I stopped the NutraSweet and started reading labels – you wouldn’t believe how many things contain NutraSweet! Within two weeks, my symptoms had faded. My sleep is slowly improving – unfortunately I’d got into such a disturbed pattern it has to be a slow process.
Last week, I found the Tinnitus FAQ on Internet – I wish I’d seen it three years ago, as it mentions Aspartame/NutraSweet as one of the causes of tinnitus, which was driving me nuts, and might have given me a clue.
I don’t know what mental block stopped me seeing this glaring anomaly in an otherwise healthy diet, but I did mention it to everyone I saw and they all missed it too. My naturopaths were happy with my diet when I described it – they must have missed my mention of a daily diet soft drink. Coca Cola and soft drinks seem to be such an ingrained part of life these days, I think many of us have a blind spot there.
I don’t blame the doctors, I don’t blame the naturopaths – they didn’t know what they were treating as it is so weird, yet I believe it is documented for anyone who wants to search. I’ve made sure they all know what I found out for myself, for the next time some poor, demented, sleepless, itching, palpitating, shivering and hot-flushing, jumping-nerved woman walks into their rooms!!! I’m sure most of them thought I was a raving hypochondriac, as they couldn’t find much wrong with me.
From blood tests, it appears I am menopausal – after a hysterectomy some years ago it was difficult to tell otherwise – and my most recent doctor and naturopath were inclined to put my symptoms down to the “menopause from hell” after the tests I had were inconclusive, so I’d also spent a fair amount of time trying one type of HRT after another. Without this, I might have woken up to the real reason – Aspartame – earlier.