My husband was only in his mid-thirties when he started suffering from debilitating joint pain – primarily in his knees and ankles. He would wake up in the morning almost unable to walk. He started taking aspirin, but soon that wasn’t enough.
I had read a little about the dangers of aspartame (NutraSweet) and asked him to try giving up his beloved diet cokes for a couple of days. He said that he probably couldn’t live without them, but he would try. After only a couple of days without the diet cokes he was pain free. But he thought that meant he could start drinking diet cokes again. It only took one diet coke before he was in agony again.
It turns out that it wasn’t easy to give up the diet cokes. It also is almost impossible to avoid aspartame. The other night he ordered a margarita and there must have been aspartame in the margarita mix because he could hardly walk the next day.
On days that he can avoid aspartame though, he is pain free. I’m so glad that we made this discovery before starting down a long path of pain killers and arthritis medication!
The binder below contains some of the resources that I found on aspartame, though I’m sure there are more. This digital binder has some interesting links with scientific data, write-ups from doctors, personal stories, and even one horrifying ‘home experiment’ with aspartame.
I was suffering from dizziness, nausea, vertigo an panic attacks for two years. Doctors did numerous tests and found nothing. I was an avid diet coke drinker and my husband to me that I had aspartame poisoning. Although I knew it would be hard to stop drinking the fizzy wonderful drink I know I had to make a decision. Continue drinking diet coke and live in misery or stop drinking diet coke and start enjoying life. I have been free of Diet Coke for two months. All my symptoms are gone! Although I still crave it and have to fight it every day, I drink club soda and I still enjoy the fizz!
Congratulations Jenny! I had heard that there are many different symptoms of aspartame poisoning. Hang in there, my husband said the cravings get less and less over time!
I went pop free, but ended up having some severe arthritis. I was hoping it was the Aspartame. I’m glad it worked out for him!
My husband drinks at least a dozen cans a day. Starts as soon as he wakes up and does not stop. He even goes down in the middle of the night and takes a few sips. He does not sleep at night, pees at least 5 times, takes several advil for his join pain and has trouble walking due to his severe hip and knee pain. He is only 50 and acts like he is older than my dad who is 84. It sucks! I think it is directly related to his diet coke. He is under a lot of financial stress right now and seems to be drinking even more diet coke. He has been addicted for at least 20 years. How can I convince him to stop?
Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, it is a really hard addiction to break. If you could convince him to try to give it up for a few days, he will be amazed at the difference in how he feels.
I enjoy looking through a post that will make people think. Also, many thanks for allowing me to comment!
Thanks for posting this important information. I have been been battling a diet soda addiction for years. I’ve noticed coke gives me more pain than pepsi. I had 1 diet coke today and both index fingers are killing me with pain. Now I know I’ve got to kick the addiction and forgo both pepsi and coke since the pain is getting worse. -Carol
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who had been doing a little homework
on this. And he in fact ordered me breakfast due
to the fact that I discovered it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thanks for the meal!
! But yeah, thanks for spending the time to talk about this topic here on your
site.