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Diet Coke Aspartame Seizure Link?
Mon, 08/24/2009 - 17:12Hi,
I am new to the site today and have been doing my own research to try and help myself understand what is going on with my epilepsy. I am 26 and have had seizures since 18 years old. Sometimes I go a year, two years without a seizure. The doctors give me the yeah yeah you had a breakthrough seizure, not sure whats causing my seizures. I'm sure you all know what I mean.... Anyway I had been seizure free for 2 1/2 years until last week when I had a breakthrough seizure. I am currently on Lamictal 500mg/day and this has been way better than the dilantin and other meds I had before. While talking about this most recent seizure somebody suggested to me that aspartame could be causing my seizures. I wasn't sure what aspartame was. So I looked it up and it is an artificial sweetener used in Diet Soda's etc. I drink Diet Coke like a drug addict !!! At least until last week that is..... Nobody ever said anything to me like this, and I figured I may have started drinking Diet Coke around the age when I started having seizures. Does this mean anything to anyone?
Re: Diet Coke Aspartame Seizure Link?
Submitted by S.Trembles on Fri, 2011-10-21 - 23:25
Want you to know you're not alone. It's been twenty years or more since I've had to worry about seizures. Only time I've had them in the past was twenty some years ago as a side effect of the anti-depressant Nortriptyline. A few years ago I became interested in diet soda pop such as Diet Cherry Coke. I was drinking a fair ammount of it when I had a seizure of one kind or another. My room mates found me flat on my back staring into space (no disruption to the room so maybe it was a petite mal instead of grand mal) They turned me on my side, which is the suggested thing to do with seizure victims (to keep the tongue out of the airway) I woke up in an ambulance. Later...when I saw a Neurologist about this, she told me to spend more modest ammounts of time on the computer and also avoid Aspartame (the artificial sweetener) I have been trying this. So far so good.