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UPDATED: Tue, 05/29/2007 - 8:24pm
lb34
ASPARTAME ANYONE???
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Wondering if Aspartame also known as nutrasweet, (common sweetener in sugar free sodas and sugar free gum) is a trigger for anyone?
By lb34 at Tue, 05/29/2007 - 8:24pm | 951 views | 26 comments
Recent Comments on this Discussion
I drink so much diet pop it should be coming out of my ears! As I read this I'm drinking a diet pepsi. I had no idea that aspartame would effect my epilepsy at all. I have been seizure free for 4 years, I don't think aspartame will effect me any time soon. I wouldn't be too worried about it.
Oh, my yes. I first discovered aspartame triggered seizures back in the 80s. My case is well documented with my neurologist, but he has no explanation for me. I avoid the stuff like the plague. A half-liter of diet anything and I'm in the ICU. I've been seizure free for more than 15 years, partly due to the fact that I avoid this food additive. The consequences are so severe, that I rarely drink soda, and avoid "diet foods" as well. If the label says "sugar free" or "diet" it doesn't go into the grocery cart.
Well, I have not had a seizure since 1981 and guess what? I had one in late July 2008. I do not drink any diet drinks, at all, but, who really knows how much aspartame is in our food supply these days. Our government is doing their best to reduce the human pop by 80%. Check it out...you will be shocked and amazed. God Bless!
Well that's weird. The first time I ever had one of my little erm...dramatic paralytic episodes, which I now think was the after effect of a long a$$ SP seizure that my body and brain just hadn't learned how to cope with yet, I had just drank like 4 cups of coffee with nutra sweet in it, and I never drink that stuff except that the office was out of normal sugar.
Of course..it also could have been the fact that I stayed up almost the whole night before which was what drove me to drink the 4 cups of nutra sweetened coffee in the first place that triggered it. I find the sleep deprivation the more likely culprit.
Ok
So as it turns out it had nothing to do with the aspertame, and everything to do with the fact that I was totally sleep deprived, stressed, nervous, and had just drank 4 cups of coffee loaded with caffine, had been sitting in a chair for two hours straight, and was suffering from autonomic dyfuction.. These factors pushed my heart rate up and caused me to hyperventilate, which I'm pretty sure is what bring on the paralysis episodes.
I drink Coke Zero and it contains Aspartame. I asked my Neuro about it and, told him it contains Aspartame and he didn't have any objections. It doesn't seem to be a trigger for me, and I do drink quite a bit of it.
LB
I hope your Neuro is right. I know it is a definite trigger for me. What concerns me is that it can take up to fifteen years to build up in your system to the point where it does damage. If you are interested in reading about it there are a lot of good sources on google scholar under aspartame. Hope you are getting some relief from your seizures.
My life has changed so much since I quit drinking diet soda. I went to the Galapagos Islands for a month in July. There are no diet drinks there, so I didn't have a choice. When I got home the first thing I did was buy a soda, and it tasted awful. Now I don't touch it. My seizures immediately lessened. Instead of 2 or 3 a week I now have maybe 1 or 2 a month. I regret not having done this soomer.
Kelly
Try:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tartrazine_and_ADHD/
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/neurotoxicity/neurotoxici...
My daughter, who is 5, starting having seizures in Nov. Her seizures were hard to control with medicine and became more and more frequent. In Feb and March she had to hospitilized 3 times for status. The last time she was admitted, I had read about the possible link with aspartate, and immediatly stopped allowing her to have it. My husband is diabetic so she did ingest it probably more often than the average child, in sugar free pudding, jello, taking drinks out of our sodas, ect.. The only other thing that changed was the doctors increased her Keppra by 100mg twice daily. She has not had a single seizure since then. At first I just thought it was a coincidence and that the aspartame had nothing to do with it. But I work in a pharmacy and after doing lots of research as to how certain seizure and other neuro drugs work, I believe without a doubt that asptartame can and does cause seizures and many many other neurological conditions.
As for me and mine, we will no longer use anything with aspartame in it!! I recently drank a diet soda because nothing else was available and I had a headache within an hour.
Hi Sydlee06,
I don't know if you ever check this website anymore but I came across your story of your daughter and am looking for answers myself for my 2 year old son who has had 5 seizures since he was 16 months old. All tests have come back normal and the neuro cannot give us any answers as to why they are happening. Upon all my research the subject of aspartame is high on my list and am trying to find other parents who have taken their children off aspartame and resulted in no more seizures. If you happen to still be on this discussion board I would like to know if your daughter is still seizure free and if you have happen to found any other cases that are the same as yours and successful. Thanks!
Worried momma, Jennifer
You should take a look at the GARD diet, I learned about it from another post on this forum in the alternative therapies section. The link is http://www.dogtorj.net/id16.html. People with epilepsy can be very sensitive to certain foods, as the previous comments were saying.
Any one with Seizures should stay away from any artificial sweetners, Splenda is at the top of the list! I strarted using Splenda thinking it was this great new safe sweetner, it tasted great also! It is any thing but safe, and it could have been the cause of my seizuring again after being seizure free for three years. Google Splenda and you will find many sites with information on the dangers of Splenda, and the likenss to all the other sweetners and the dangerous side effects they all have. With that in mind NO ONE should use these sweetners. I can't remember the site I came across, but the one I had read listed all the (incrediably scarry)serious health problems that can occur, one being the cause of seizures. So no more diet sodas! You can buy diet products that are low in fat and sugar,(the real stuff) but for the drinks...stick to water we all need more of it anyway!
LB
dbmomma, Thanks for the info! I always new I wanted to stay away from aspartame because I heard it crossed the blood brain barrier but this is the first I am hearing about splenda. I will definitely google it when I am more wide awake. I am going to bed now but thank you so much. I have my water bottle beside me now. No more diet drinks. Thanks again. God bless you and good night.
"Potentially beneficial dietary interventions include identifying and treating blood glucose dysregulation, identifying and avoiding allergenic foods, and avoiding suspected triggering agents such as alcohol, aspartame, and monosodium glutamate."
http://www.epilepsy.com/pubmed/pubmed.php?article=17397265
Aspartame is a known trigger to some people with epilepsy.
~sol
LB
Sol- thanks for your response. I had stopped drinking diet coke about 10 yrs ago because it led to a severe HA then I accidentally ingested aspartame in chewable vitamin c and I got such a bad HA that I was paralyzed on my L side and became incontinent of stool. Now an epileptic with tonic clonic seizures it makes me leary of going out to eat because, for me it can trigger the seizures as well. I wish the FDA would take this product off the market. I wonder how many others have this problem. Thanks for the web address. God is good. God Bless you. lb
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener. But as to whether it is a seizure trigger for epileptic seizures varies from one person to the other: Some people say that it is but for me it isn't. Others argue that the case against aspartame is because of the sugar industry who don't want to lose profits because of a diet conscious population. There may be other sweeteners that aren't artificial like honey if a person doesn't want either sugar or artificial sweeteners. I don't know about Stevia which claims to be natural but isn't FDA approved. I have met other people who take Stevia beside myself with no ill effects. It is up to the individual as to whether they want to take the risk.
I quit drinking diet colas with aspartame (Nutrasweet) because even though it's low cal, it does still mess a little with a person's blood sugar levels.
However, I do love diet cola, so now I drink Diet Rite brand, which uses Splenda instead. It tastes better and has no side effects (at least for me). It's not as easy to find (no vending machines or restaurants) but most grocery stores have it.
Just sayin'!
If you are interested in this topic check a book out of the library entitled "Treating Epilepsy Naturally : A Guide to Alternative and Adjunct Therapies" by Patricia A. Murphy. She lists several common foods that have been likely and common seizure triggers, and that is only one of them. I thought it looked interesting when I was there, but I had no idea how many foods could be harmful. There is also a whole section of foods that heal in the book as well.
when aspartame first came on the market , i thought oh great. so i started drinking diet sodas with it. then my hubby noticed i was having lots of abscence siezures from a couple of cans a day. went to my neuro at the time and he told me to stop immediately. he said that there was a medical paper sent to imabout the dangers of aspartame and siezures. stopped drinking it, they went away.
God Bless,
banffgirl
life is fragile, handle with prayer.
I have never noticed seizures, but it gives me terrible migraines. I don't drink it anymore. I started a diet and was going to the ER about once a week. They gave me a pamphlet on things that trigger them and Aspartame was one of them. I gave up diet pop and don't get them anymore
The Epilepsy Institute of New York and the Epilepsy Foundation of America say that aspartame is safe for use by people with epilepsy. Numerous scientific studies were done in animals and in people who were convinced that aspartame caused their seizures and in children with epilepsy. The results of these studies demonstrated that aspartame does not cause or worsen seizures.
http://www.aspartame.org/aspartame_myths_epil.html
I used to be the kind of epileptic who could drink three cups of coffee a day, but one day, after a year, BAM, I just became realllllly sensitive to stimulants... (Neuro can't explain the switch...) Now I can't touch coffee, tea or chocolate (it contains theobromine - the chemical cousin to caffeine). Sigh... So I gave up Coke and started drinking Tab, a diet cola that contains no caffeine or sugar but heaps of ASPARTAME. But... I then noticed that if I had more than two glasses, I felt all funny and wired and wouldn't sleep a wink that night... even if I drank it round 12am! And my pupils would go all HUGE!!!
So, it looks like no aspartame for me. Dunno if my story will help anyone, but those are the facts. ;-)
(Just so you know, I've got catamenial epilepsy and take 75g of topamax at night.)
It may be safe for seizures as you say, but it definately causes migraines. Hospital information given to me.
Yes!!! People are very skeptical when I tell them this, but I cannot have aspartme, or I can just plan to have a bunch of CPs for the rest of the day. (I should have drank diet soda during my VEEG, duh!)
I can't even have a piece of sugar free gum.
My mother swears that it causes cancer in rats, so it's just as well. ;-)