I would like to tell you about my personal experiences with Aspartame and what I feel that it has done to me.
In the last two years I have become a *heavy* Diet Pepsi drinker (approximately 2 two liters a day, plus NutraSweet in my coffee, and many so called “diet” products once my weight gain began. And I the more NutraSweet I consumed the more weight I put on.) Hearing things about how NutraSweet was bad for you, but never really knowing the facts. I don’t know exactly how long after starting to drink that much of the soda my symptoms started to appear, but I would say that it was about six to eight months. For a little over a year now I have had to deal with *tremendous* weight gain. I always had a little bit of extra meat on my body, but I was always active enough to keep it level. I never changed weight much, but in the last year I have put on approximately 70 pounds, all in my thighs and hips.
(This may or may not be all from Aspartame, obviously, but I don’t know.)
In addition to the weight gain, I have had AWFUL mood problems. I have been diagnosed as manic depressive, and have started to have anxiety attacks. I don’t know how much of my other physical ailments were caused by Aspartame, but before I list them let me say that previous to my drinking the soda all the time, I didn’t have any of the symptoms. I was an average, mostly healthy 19 year old girl. I have always had very, very minor arthritis (since I was a child) and very light asthma (never “attacks”, but it made normal colds worse). The rest of these things, I never had ever had wrong with me until I started drinking the soda all the time.
- Anxiety attacks/panic attacks
- Bloating
- Breathing difficulties/chronic cough
- Burning urination
- VERY CHRONIC FATIGUE
- Depression (Very Badly)
- EXTREMELY EXCESIVE THIRST AND HUNGER
- Face flushing
- Thinning/losing hair
- Extreme loss of sexual feelings (has caused huge problems with my fiancée and me)
- Inability to concentrate
- Insomnia (Severe)
- Irritability
- Itching
- Joint pains
- VERY marked personality changes
- Memory loss/poor memory/not as good as it used to be
- EXTREMELY MESSED UP menstrual cycles
- Numbness/tingling of extremities
- EXTREME WEIGHT GAIN
I am now 21 years old, and I honestly feel like I’m an 85 year old. (No offense to anyone older, but I think you get what I mean.) I just don’t feel young and full of life the way I used to. I thought these things were all wrong with me because of my “manic depression” that the doctor said I had. I thought that all of it was in my head. I have spent time actively thinking that I am an awful human being, fat and lazy and worthless.
Tracing these emotions backwards, I realize that they all started after my HEAVY consumption of Diet Pepsi started. I used to be vibrant, full of confidence and able to spend a day being physically active with the best of them. Now I can’t do any of those things.