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MY ASPARTAME NIGHTMARE By Carma Haley My name is Carma Haley. I am a 30-year-old woman, wife, and mother of three. I am also an "aspartame victim". It wasn't until a family member sent me a link to a web site that I even knew exactly what aspartame was. I had heard of it, but had no idea about the real truth. I have been a "pop" drinker all of my adult life. I began drinking Mt. Dew when I took a job working nights. It helped me to stay up and make it through those long 8 hours. When I began to put on a little weight I switched to a diet pop, to cut down on the amount of sugar I was getting. I then began drinking Diet Pepsi. On an average day I would consume approximately 8 to 10 cans of Diet Pepsi, and that's not counting the ones that I would grab on the go. I drank mypop with every meal, in the mornings, all the time. I didn't drink anything else but Diet Pepsi. I bought my pop by the cases and always had a spare, just in case. I was never without a can, bottle, or glass of Diet Pepsi. I even bought one of those 64-ounce thermal mugs with a lid so I could take my pop in the car with me. In 1991 I started having very bad mood swings. I would cry at the drop of a hat, laugh even when there wasn't anything funny, and yell for no legitimate reason what so ever. I was scared. I went to see a doctor and was told that I was suffering from depression. And as all doctors do, I was given a prescription for an antidepressant. Over the course of the next 3 or 4 years, I went to see a lot of doctors, for different reasons. I was still having the mood swings, I had an awful pain in my neck and upper back all the time, my sides (found out later it was my kidneys) hurt every morning, I was gaining weight like crazy (55 pounds over 3 ½ years), I couldn't concentrate, I felt like life was a blur, I had headaches almost daily and migraines at least once a week, I was swelling at my hands, feet and ankles, I had no energy, I was tired all the time, I couldn't sleep, my heart would pound so hard it felt like it would jump out of my chest, my teeth were rotting right out of my head, my memory was failing, I was losing my taste, my vision was getting bad, and I had developed this awful rash all over. Those are just the things that I can remember off the top of my head. The list of doctors that I had seen over the years looks like a phone book. Family doctors, eye doctors, dentists, psychologists, psychiatrists, specialists, and even a chiropractor. Needless to say, I had a lot of medical bills. One of the doctors that I had went to for awhile even told me, "If this keeps up, we will have to classify you as a hypochondriac!" Me, crazy? I have always been so realistic. I felt that if the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me, then maybe I was I had been officially diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, masked hypothyroidism, chronic acute kidney disorder, depression, and calcium deficiency. I was taking approximately 8 pills a day for all of this. I would wash all the pills down with my Diet Pepsi. As I stated before, I didn't even know what aspartame was until a family member referred me to a site called "aspartamekills.com". I thank her every time I talk to her. I quit using aspartame the minute I finished reading an article called "The truth about aspartame". I am not kidding. That very minute I took my 64 ounce cup and walked over to the sink and dumped it out. My husband was astounded. He was so use to never seeing me without my pop, and here I was dumping it down the drain. And to shock him even more, I filled my cup with ice water! At the time of writing this, I have only been aspartame free for about 3 weeks. I have to say that I feel better already. I have not had but one headache in the whole 3 weeks! My back and neck do not hurt ½ as bad as they usually did. I can actually concentrate on what I am doing, and not feel like I keep losing my place. I sleep a little better, and waking up is not as hard as it use to be. My kidneys don't hurt all the time, and I can taste food when I eat it. My family doesn't run and hide from me anymore. I have stopped taking 3 of my medications, and soon will be off a fourth. I enjoy being outside, and the sun doesn't hurt my eyes or give me a headache anymore. Most importantly, I feel like a normal person. I am writing again, and enjoying my family. Don't get me wrong, I am not 100%, and I may never be. Nine years is a long time to do continual damage to your body, and it won't repair overnight. I do know this, I am aspartame free, and I am happy to be. If it wasn't for that one family member of mine, I would still be poisoning myself. That is why I am writing this. If I can help one person see what aspartame does, and how it affects the human body, and that person tells one person, then sooner or later people will know, and will be armed with the information they need to recover from aspartame poisoning…and be ASPARTAME FREE! Carma Haley |
