Aspartame

I stay away from this stuff, avoid it like the plague!! Ever since Nutra-Sweet became available, it's has been one big headache for me, literally. This stuff can produce the closest thing to a migraine I have ever had. The problem these days is that they no longer print on the outer label of foods when they are using it like they used to. You used to see that little white swirly label on the front of sweets or juices that warned people like me to stay away. I'm finding now that I have to actually read the ingredients to see if aspartame is in something, and it's in so many things now that I often forget!

Last summer, I found that I really liked, for the first time, Minute Maid light juices. I love fruit juice, but I have to limit my intake of it due to the ultra high sugar content. When I discovered how much I loved this light juice as opposed to other light juices, I went for it! I didn't see a little Nutra-Sweet or Splenda insignia on it, so I assumed it was safe. I bought my six pack and off I went to Connecticut. While away, I noticed I was getting these awful headaches around the same time each day - noon. I was loading up on Advil, not really certain what was causing them. It didn't occur to me until we were standing in line at Einsteins and I had pulled a Minute Maid light from the cooler that the cause of my headaches might be an artificial sweetener. I scoured the label, no little warning, then looked over the ingredients and there it was. I quickly exchanged my MM for water and from that point on, I had a headache free vacation.

More recently, I had not been feeling well. None of the issues I had should have involved a headache, but I was starting to get a terrible one. At first, I was thinking it was from being cooped up at home, or possibly even stress from having to deal with multiple doctors and taking different antibiotics and pills. But even when I would switch or not feel so stressed this headache would persist. Then, it occurred to me. The one thing I was doing day after day different from before was taking these Vitamin C pills I grabbed while in line at the pharmacy for the THIRD time!! I was a little desperate! I never even thought to look at the ingredients, but had bought chewable ones so the girls could have them as well. They had had them at my sisters house and I was hoping they would give them a try at home since we were all sick.

Now, I had no inkling that my headache was connected to these things. I did notice, however, that they were about half the size of the ones my sister had. I just chalked it up to being a different dosage or something. But after several days of a terrible headache getting worse, I was on a mission to figure out what it was from. And there it was, ingredient #4, aspartame. Duh! I stopped taking them and voila, the headache went away. In fact, I have not even thought about taking Advil for many days now. What a shame.

I want those days back when that little swooshy sign was on the front of labels of products with artificial sweeteners. My life would be so much easier and headache free!! Not to mention I would feel better knowing I wasn't feeding this stuff to my kids. (these new cereals with splenda have made me MAD!) Either that or someone please make me an artificial sweetener that doesn't give me a headache!