I know how hard it is to give up Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi — I was addicted to the stuff. Do you remember how much I used to put away? Athol (my husband) as almost as bad.
Here is my NutraSweet story — I used to get horrible headaches and was thinking of taking out shares in Johnson & Johnson I was sucking down so many Tylenol! Mary Beth had told me that NutraSweet gave her terrible headaches and I poo-pooed her until it eventually got so bad that decided to try. The headache used to sit at the base of my skull and my neck would crack horribly when I stretched it in an attempt to alleviate the pain. After going through a few weeks of withdrawal symptoms — I was fine. I haven’t taken ANY pain killer for over three years.
Now Athol’s NutraSweet HORROR story. A couple of times in South Africa and then a couple of times here Athol had unexplained blackouts. It wasn’t a faint — he didn’t crumple like a faint — he would go down like a felled tree! We saw an endless parade of heart specialists and neurologists; he had MRI’s, EKG’s, EEG’s, zillions of blood tests. No answer.
Eventually one collapse (about 3 or 4 years ago) was so bad we thought he’d had a stroke — he had all the symptoms of a stroke. Paralysis down one side, slurred speech — the works. He was hospitalized — more tests including a Doppler scan of the carotid arteries (clear). They finally let him come home after three days and we were really none the wiser. The doctor and hospital decided that a perfectly healthy 33 year old male with NO predisposing factors had had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) — doctor-speak for mini-stroke. He had several more collapses after that.
Finally one at work which freaked everyone out. His boss insisted that he stay home until he was properly diagnosed. He saw yet another neurologist in the city and this one finally diagnosed epilepsy. Athol then went through a series of four anti-seizure drugs. Dilantin (caused a suicidal depression), Depakote (came damned close to destroying his liver, the liver enzyme SGOT measured 240 when it should be under 40), Tegretol (made him unbelievably moody and aggressive) and finally Lamictal which seemed to be OK.
Problem was the initial dosage wasn’t preventing the seizures. They kept increasing the dose until Athol was like a zombie. In the meantime I had read that NutraSweet could cause seizures. I begged Athol to stop using the stuff, figuring that someone who was already having seizures didn’t need anything that could cause more.
Finally in October of last year he did stop. Unrelated to this he had decided to start reducing his medication because he hated how he was feeling. He decided that he would take his chances with the seizures rather than feel so lethargic and spacey all the time. He gradually reduced his dosage and on Christmas Day 1996 stopped using medication altogether. He has not had one seizure since. Coincidence, I think not. He only started these seizures after he’d met me and I used Aspartame.
When I think of the harm I must have done to myself, Athol and my kids by having us all use this poison in the mistaken belief that sugar was actually worse for us I feel physically sick. I can only hope that we quit in time.