I have had more than 1 doctor warn me about NutraSweet. Funny, I don’t use it anyway. Because my first time ingesting it resulted in hallucinations and the most incredible anxiety I have ever experienced. I ran into my mother’s bedroom crying and insisting that my room was haunted. I told her that things were flying around and my digital display on my clock had changed from green to blood red and was dripping.
Thing was. I didn’t even know I had had NutraSweet. A friend of mine had made Kool-Aid with it, and we had gone for a picnic at a fishing pier. I asked her if she had put “anything special” in the Kool-Aid and she said. Just “Equal.” I put it in the back of my mind, until one day (about a week later), I hear on the radio that there were people having bad reactions to NutraSweet, including hallucinations. I called the FDA that afternoon. They sent someone over to interview me, and gave me Searle’s address (the manufacturer).
I sent for more information and FDA reports and such. This was before the internet and before they began putting it into every diet food on the market.
What I read about Aspartame (NutraSweet) astounded me, and I never touched the stuff again. I got very habitual about reading labels and asking people if what they had given me had Aspartame in it. I also made a point of educating people about it, as much as I could.
My sister has had a seizure disorder since she was a child. The constantly told her it wasn’t epilepsy. Oddly enough, her new neurologist and a second opinion just confirmed that it IS epilepsy.
ROTFL (as if we didn’t know). Anyway, she had been on her usual “epilepsy” meds for her seizure disorder (that still cracks me up) since she was in 3rd grade. Only one grand mal seizure when she was about 13. We felt that had to do with her getting her period the first time and the hormonal changes affecting her brain. From the time she was 32 or so, she started to have petit mal seizures again.
No one could figure out why. Then, one day, about 2 years ago, she revealed to me that it was very common for her to drink 3-5 Diet Cokes a day. I was so upset. Here she was. Just the person who shouldn’t be drinking that poison!!!! And now she is having small seizures again? I asked her to promise me that she would quit the Diet Cokes and drink regular ones for 2 weeks. Just as an experiment. She hasn’t touched one since, or had any seizures at all.