Comments on: Carbonation, Soda, Aspartame and Caffeine Withdrawal

By: Annoushka

Annoushka — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 19:22:58 +0000

I am a 43 year old woman who has had borderline high blood pressure for the past few years but no other major problems. I have had for the last 20 years a myriad of problems and health issues that concern me, but drs could find nothing and were just ready to prescribe me antidepressants. For the most part, I do not consume aspartame or Splenda products daily, but I have consumed them throughout the week (most weeks) in various forms. That, and I have been through periods where I have consumed a lot of aspartame. The FDA approved them, right? They can’t be all that bad…. Since I found out that I’ve had high-ish blood pressure, I thought I needed to hydrate more and since the water in my community doesn’t taste the best (even after I filter it) I bought some Crystal Lite. It tastes good! Well, I started drinking it–a lot–and everything got worse. The sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, were things I thought I could ‘handle’ since I’ve had these complaints on and off the last 20 years of my life. Really. Just work through that stuff, lest I be told I am a complainer. The joint pain, though…unbearable. First, my knee. It started clicking and the pain I would have made me afraid to walk across the room. I HAVE to walk for my job, so the first month this stuff was going on, I was afraid for my future. It is still clicking a bit, but the pain is now gone. I hope the clicking resolves itself. Then, pain so terrible in my toe that I just about screamed every time the top of my toe touched my shoe. I had that for three days, and then it completely disappeared. Shoulders are awfully painful and between that pain and my back pain, I don’t even feel like I can hold my body up straight. Those problems continue. The real kicker was my thumb joint spontaneously started being painful, with a searing pain. Pain that makes me wince, and cry. I love to knit, and this particular joint pain was making it impossible. Knitting is kind of meditative to me and if I just sit on the couch and watch tv (while wincing every time I use my thumb on the remote or trying to put my hand around my cup of Crystal Lite) I kind of feel useless, and ill at ease. I wondered why my body was deteriorating so quickly. I mean, I’ve never had any sort of joint pain or arthritis problems before. After I had it for two weeks and was mentally making plans to see a doctor over holiday break (I live in a very rural area where my dr is a few flights away…) I made a list of the things I’d been doing differently in the past few months and using Stevia in the Raw (Stevia & dextrose), drinking instant coffee, and Crystal Lite (60+ ounces a day) /Diet Coke (maybe one or two a week) consumption were the things most notable. Then, I remembered when I was in college and had a cafeteria card. I drank a lot of Diet Coke there, and that is when I started going to drs asking for help with my health concerns. I cut down on the Diet Coke after a few semesters because I thought it was the caffeine that was causing problems, but after this current round of problems, I think it has nothing to do with caffeine. So…fast forward to today…one week off of any aspartame product. I am sleeping better, my mood seems more even, and my leg swelling seems reduced. Still have some joint issues, but my joints seem less painful than they were. I do hope this continues. I’m tired of being sick…and tired. Aspartame is a poison to me. I hope that I didn’t ruin my joints by consuming it. I plan to never knowingly consume it again. I hope this forum helps people make their own decisions about their health and healing instead of looking to drs as the ultimate authority. They aren’t. They are just people, too. And if they haven’t had any aspartame-related issues or if they just read the ‘scientific evidence’ (funded by Monsanto), then they probably don’t/won’t understand the scope of this problem for some.

By: Dr. Mitch

Dr. Mitch — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:27:25 +0000

Hello Everyone, I have read thru all your posts. Please let me refer you to dorway.com for the low-down on Aspartame. Also, you need to find the movie called: " Sweet Misery, A Poisoned World". It was done by a young lady who got off aspartame poisoning. The movie tells how aspartame was discovered, researched, marketed, etc. You can thank Donald Rumsfield for getting it approved. It was approved politically, not because it was safe. It's all in the movie. By the way, ASPARTAME is also marketed as Splenda, Crystal Lite, Sucrolose, Equal, Neotame, and a few other names. It causes 92 symptoms ranging from multiple sclerosis to death. Check it out. Good luck to everyone on your Aspartame free life.

By: Adrienne

Adrienne — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:59:54 +0000

I have been off of aspartame for 21 days..with a diet coke habit for 20 years. easy 4-5 cans per day. The withdrawl symptoms were horrendous. Headaches, random body pains that travel througout my body, stiff neck, dull aches, severe tiredness..my goodness I thought I had cancer, lupus, rheumatiod athritis, every auto immune disease out there. It was scary. I went to the doctor with all of my concerns, not attributing this to asparatame and caffeine, she thought I was a hypercondriac. Anyway, I still have some of the mild pains but I have mental clarity that I have never felt before, better sleep and I am more alert. Never will I concume this product again. Also, try making small changes to you diet too. Like I gave up fast food and packaged food..so I think my body was and is in complete shock...

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:06:07 +0000

I have always been a sweet tea junkie & decided a few months ago to go off the sweet tea (sweetened with sugar) & drink only water. I didn’t like plain water & discovered peach tea flavor packets to add to my water bottles. I had been chugging this for close to 3 months & going through a box of 10 packets every day & 1/2. Suddenly a few wks ago, I had a horrible earache & vertigo set in. I thought it was just an ear infection due to sinus problems. Dr. Said my ear looked fine. She gave me vertigo meds & said it should work itself out w/i a few days. The vertigo got worse, along w/blurred vision off & on, extreme mood swings w/unbearable anger, numbness in my legs & abdomen. I started googling & found aspartame poisoning symptoms. I checked my peach tea packets & sure enough, there it was! So, I’ve been 4 days off the aspartame now (it was the only thing different I’d been doing). The 1st couple days seemed okay. Today was day 4 & absolutely horrible! The dizziness has come back & will last a few seconds but the episodes are extremely severe in nature now. I’ve fallen twice today! I have aches/pains (aside from the bruising from the falls) & extremely restless legs. There’s also this horrible itching that is akin to narcotic pain pill itching (history of kidney stones & the narc pain pills always make me itch). Is this all normal? The dizziness is also making me nauseous. I’m on day 4 – my question is, how long before these symptoms abate? Thank you for any help!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:45:00 +0000

I found this forum this morning b/c of the horrible foot cramps, joint pain and swelling and leg pain and weakness I have been experiencing. I have been experimenting with aspertame for the past couple of months. I am thoroughly CONVINCED I have aspertame poisoning. One bottle of aspertame-laced diet tea the other day and I am fighting off the swelling in my feet and ankles again. I got on here this morning thinking the leg pain and weakness HAD to be something else. Now I'm thinking it is the aspertame. Get this stuff out of my body!!! Thank you all for the encouragement. I will keep on pushing through...

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 06:53:40 +0000

Recently quit my 4-5 diet drink habit approximately 3 weeks ago. I must say, this website was a relief to me when I read of others having the same symptoms I have been having while bearing the withdraw process. Aspartame is the DEVIL!!!! I have had the worst 2 weeks ever since quitting. Pains in neck, shoulders, arms, and extreme fatigue. Really thought I might have cancer. SERIOUSLY...it has been that bad. I want everyone out there to know that this stuff is pure poison, and you don't realize how toxic it is to your body until you detox from it. Good luck to all and god bless everyone who has posted words of comfort on this site.

By: izzydoesit

izzydoesit — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 06:22:59 +0000

It's too bad the replies on this thread are becoming sparser, I'd think more people would come forward to talk about Aspartame poisoning as our environment becomes increasingly toxic. BTW, there's a post by one troll obviously planted as an Aspartame shill. Do your own research. Weigh all the evidence out there, both pro and con. If you believe, like the vast majority of people in this country, that the government would not lie to you or that your doctor is an infallible source of medical information, you've been drinking the Kool-Aid too long.

I drank diet soda and chewed sugarless gum for 25 years. I chewed 60-75 pieces of gum a day--sometimes more. About two months ago I began to have alarming symptoms I'd never had before: swelling of my feet and ankles (and I'm very thin, not diabetic, very low blood pressure) pins and needles in my legs and feet, stabbing pains in my legs, horrific charlie horses, a feeling like my legs were filled with needles, terrible headaches, a stabbing pain behind my left eye, subconjuntival hemorrhages in that same eye four times in four months (which my opthamologist said was nothing), hair loss, tinnitus, hearing loss, a painful receding of my finger nail beds, brain fog and a feeling of unreality, heart palpitations, depression, suicidal ideation, and frightening memory loss. My GP said he didn't know what was wrong; the cardiologist pronounced my heart healthy; the neurologist doesn't know either but is sending me for 2 MRIs next week (of my brain and neck, the other of my spine) and another neuro test he'll do in his office. He tested my blood for Lupus (neg), Lyme disease (neg) and also for Sjogrens which came back slightly positive but he wants to check that again in six weeks.

I've known about Aspartame for a long time and quit a while back but started again; after my neuro visit something told me to research it. I watched "Sweet Misery" online and read articles for about ten hours. I quit cold turkey 8 days ago. The foot swelling is not as bad, but the headaches are awful, I feel flu-ish and have a slight fever, the pains in my legs, feet, arms and hands are excruciating. When the symptoms got worse AFTER I quit the Aspartame, I wondered if maybe it was not the cause after all, but after reading how sick people were, and how long the symptoms persisted, perhaps it IS withdrawl that will take time to abate.

The other thing is that I had Hodgkins lymphoma six years ago and there is some clinical evidence that Aspartame is linked to lymphoma and leukemia. When I mentioned this to my oncologist this week at my yearly check-up he said he didn't know about that and wasn't really interested in finding out more. My neurologist said he didn't know much about it either but said there was no clinical studies published that proved Aspartame caused these symptoms, although he did admit that he thought the Aspartame could exacerbate an existing condition.

It's common knowledge that Searle pushed Aspartame through FDA approval with the help of some highly dishonest and crooked people who had financial and political motivation to do so (Donald Rumsfeld was the prime instigator). The studies Searle did were seriously flawed and there was clinical evidence they willfully did not report or knowingly misreported to the FDA. They have also stonewalled researchers who wanted to do further studies about the effects of Aspartame on the human body because it is felt by many people with good reason that previous studies were far from rigorous and conclusive. The class action suit by Aspartame victims was dropped several years back.

Aspartame, is a billion dollar business and is now put into things like chewable vitamins with no labeling on the package. This is nothing short of criminal.

If your health has been affected by this toxic poison it is incumbent on each of us to get the message out so that more people know the dangers of this dangerously harmful and very legal food additive. I only hope that I have not done irreparable damage to my body.

By: Norma Pogue

Norma Pogue — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:46:39 +0000

Been drinking 2-3 12-oz cans of diet drink for over 20 years. Decided last Monday to give it up, just for good health purposes. By Thursday I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Hadn't slept in 2 nights because of headaches. Had dizziness, racing heart, blood pressure shot up, aches and pains everywhere. Spent lunch hours sleeping in my car. Finally went to dr. on Thurs. Blood pressure was 147/100. Never once thought it had anything to do with diet soda withdrawal. On Friday went to lunch and ordered a diet Dr. Pepper. Halfway through lunch I began to feel better. By the time I got back to work I felt amazing! That's when I realized what was wrong with me. And it wasn't caffeine withdrawal because I was still getting some caffeine. It was aspartame and/or whatever else they put in diet drinks. I've got to get off this stuff. Don't know how I can get through withdrawal. It's horrible.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 01:06:34 +0000

Well, I stumbled onto the aspartame poisoning topic while web searching for cheap cases of DP shipped to my door. Yes, a daily addict of 2 20 oz. bottles every day, and the first liquid intake of the day…. o cold, sweet nectar of the gods! But alas, I see it is killing me. What really jumped out at me was the possible link to tissue and joint paint which seemed to be worsening lately for no apparent reason. It’s a no brainer to me, …quit. Today is the first day aspartame free for me. Dreading the coming days, from what I’ve read here from others, but glad I found it. Thanks for sharing your info!!!!

By: Eva

Eva — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:14:07 +0000

Hi everyone, I think finding this website back in May really changed my life. I quit cold turkey my bad bad habit of diet pepsi (4-5 litres/a day). I no longer suffer from debilitating post-exercise migraines. Coming home from work today, an idea came over me. I am a photo student and would really be interested in doing a photo project on us, the ones who suffered because of our diet soda addictions and decided to quit to restore our health. Maybe turn the portraits into a book with personal stories. I felt very strongly about my diet pepsis but now I feel very strongly about not having my diet pepsis and knowing there are many more people like that who can understand both the initial addiction and then the turning back on it and dealing with the withdrawals is so much more empowering. I am in NJ but definitely willing to travel, at least a bit. Please, send me an email if you would like to participate in this project. I can definitely send links to my other photo work.

Thank you so much and congratulations on your new life post diet-soda.

Eva