Thursday, February 26, 2009

My Battle with Aspartame posion

MY BATTLE WITH ASPARTAME POISON!!!
My name is Cathy Alexander, age 52, from Tennessee.
IN 2005 I had an operation on my abdomen. There were 100 days of recovery time. A week after I got up one morning and my legs folded under me. I could not walk and my mind was so cloudy I could not remember what day it was. I was very frightened because I had never felt this way before. I would hold on to whatever was near, holding unto the walls to get down the hall to the bathroom, falling along the way. I was so scared never felt this way before.
I had no insurance. I went to 3 different ER's at three different county hospitals. First they all thought I was on drugs or drunk and I wasn't. With all kinds of testing they could not find anything. I had to come up with the money to go to a Neurologist who tested me and did spinal taps. Nothing showed up. So the neurologist and another doctor said it was acute cerebellitis and I would be better in about 6 months. By that time it was the same or even worse. I had no balance or any motor skills. It was like my muscles were soft and did not work. I do not take prescriptions for nervous or antidepressants, but I was very shaky and very depressed. I did not care to live. I would wake up and cry because i was still here another day. I was clumsy, dizzy and suffered from blurred and double vision. I could not remember anything from the day before. My speech was slurred. I had to have around the clock care so My Best Friend took care of me. I almost lost all my hearingand eyesight.The doctors gave me all kinds of medication but nothing worked. I used a walker for a while and even then I would be walking across the yard and just fall, like mini strokes, 5 to 10 times a day. My best Friend heard Dr.Blalock on a short way radiotelling about Aspartame and systoms and how to test to see if it is what you have.So i went back to talk to my DOCTOR Dr,Lewis Told him When this first hit me you asked me how many diet drinks I had a day.I did not lie to him but said at least one or two a day.He asked me to stop but I never did until the day came when I went back to him I told him i did not tell him the whole truth,I drink 5 or more and other sugarfree products, gum, Crystal Lite, and sugarfree gum, all having aspartame in it. He told me to get off all aspartame for 90 days.That is the same thing Dr.Blalock said do. So I did. After about four weeks my eyesight and hearing got better.My pain had lessened as it was before all this happened.
My doctor knew all about Aspartame poison. He had done research on it a few years ago when his wife was sick from it.
The last 9 months I had kidneystone problems. I never reported this to my kidney doctor because so many doctors don't believe in aspartame poisoning. About two months I told my kidney doctor about me having aspartame poisoning awhile back. He said he wished he had known because then he would known something different to try for my stones. I have had 21 kidney stone operations in the last nine months. The doctor thought my body was making the acid that makes the stones. But the poison shut down the tubes that filters the acid to my kidneys. So he doubled my medications for stones and now they have about all of them.
WHAT ASPARTAME DID TO MY LIFE AND MY CONDITION.
I have always been a hard worker, quick thinking and never forgot. I could go to stores and start talking to anyone about anything. I never met a stranger. I was a sales person many years and was real proficient. I had that kind of personality. Aspartame took all that from me. Now I go in and out of stores as fast as I can hoping no one will speak to me because of my memory loss. I can't even think of anything to say to anyone.
I cannot be friendly or even smile to people who I don't know. I really feel like a nobody. At times I feel like I am only here to love my grandkids and feel their love. My grandchildren caused me to fight to overcome what aspartame has done to my life. Even after over a year and a half of being aspartame free, I stay very depressed and can't comprehend. I can't remember things unless the thought is triggered. I still have sore and soft muscles and no strength, and I still have pain in my joints. NO PERSONALITY AT ALL. I cannot drive because of falling asleep all the time from the narcolepsy, that I never had before.
Each day has gotten better on all other things since I am aspartame free. I had no medications to help me through this. All it took was getting off aspartame. I am sure i would have died if i had not got off of it.I know the aspartame took over my body when it was the weakest. Aspartame about killed me. In some ways it did. I feel like aspartame is a time bomb, you drink and carry it around in your body., while it waits for a weak point to set it off. How does anyone know when they are going to have a bad operation or wreck or become sick. If aspartame were not stored in your body people would have a better chance to recover.
Today is Nov.5th 2008 I had to get a shot in my right knee for the arthritis I have in my joints that worsened with the poison.
Today is Dec.18th 2008 and I got shots in my right hip for the arthritis in my joints that worsened since the poison. I guess I will have to have them in all joints. They are helping..
THIS IS MY STORY FOR NOW Dec.18th 2008. I WILL ADD MORE AS I REMEMBER IT.
Feb-2009 Now I have had 25 kidneystone operations in 11 months.Right now I am going to the hospital every 12 hours.I have a pickline where the give me Fortaz antibiotic for 10 days.All the stones keep causing me to have a E. Coli infection in my left kidneythis is the 2nd one in the past 2 months.I am looking at maybe loosing my left kidney. ALL BECAUSE OF ASPARTAME POSION.
Cathy in Tennessee
cathyax@bellsouth.net

8 comments:

  1. Wow Cathy,
    I never knew that this could happen. I feel really badly for what happened/still is happening to you, and I hope you are able to fully recover. Aspartame is in everything, who would have known?

    good luck with everything!

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  2. More people should realize what a danger we are up against.

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  3. I never would have thought. My mother drinks aspartame. I'll have to warn her.

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  4. I have read the book "Sweet Deception," so I was already aware of the very harmful side effects of aspartame...but until I actually experienced becoming suddenly ill from ingesting it, I have come to realize how very dangerous it can be.

    I've avoided aspartame like the plague, but 3 days ago, I accidently purchased a bag of sugar-free cough drops. Within 12 hours, I ate 15 cough drops with aspartame and was feeling an extreme level of what I thought was heartburn. All of a sudden my body temperature rose within 3 minutes, covering me in sweat, and then dropped, and I felt chills and got very weak (couldn't hardly move my legs and arms and got very dizzy). I felt like I was dying, but I dragged my feet to my car to get to my dad's place. After I got there I threw up. My father took me to the emergency ward of a hospital, and while waiting to be seen I ate one cough drop still unaware of it was acting like poison in my body. I got another bout of extreme stomach pain and nausea about 20 minutes later, but the doctors didn't find anything, just that my temperature was at 101. Later on, I realized that the only unusual thing that I did eat the day before was aspartame. I think that my case is very unusual to be that sensitive to a "food product," but I feel that it at least needs warning labels, so that people can be aware. I also didn't realize how dangerous it was for me to drive, because the aspartame was actually affecting my arm and leg functioning (blocking my brain signals to my body); I just thought it was weak from fever at the time.

    This is a real life story (not made up). I'm almost wondering if other people might have experienced it too, but blamed it on having the flu or eating spoiled food, not the diet soda that they might have just drank.

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  5. Hi Cathy,

    So sorry to read another sad story about aspartame - I hope that things have improved for you & that you'll be interested in visiting / joining at http://noaspa.blogspot.com/ which is a new site that aims to focus more attention on the controversy surrounding both aspartame and sodium fluoride.

    Best wishes from Hamburg

    Will

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  6. I've just learned about aspartame poisoning. I've been told I have fibromyalgia and had symptoms of Ms but no lesions. The Ms symptoms disappeared several months ago and yesterday when I read an article that talked about how aspartame can cause all the symptoms I thought back and realized my Ms like symptoms stopped around the same time I cut back from 4 to 5 large diet drinks a day to only one 20 ounce diet drink a day. If it wasn't for my sister in law sending me the article I would have never made the correlation. I was hoping not consuming any aspartame at all would help with the pain and cognitive difficulties I still have that the doctors call fibromyalgia. I see you still have problems with memory and other things. I was wondering if you have tried detoxing. From what I have been reading this morning the poisons that cause the symptoms are stored in fat cells for the most part and that detox and certain herbs can help the body get rid of the poisons quicker and easier which I'm sure would help remaining symptoms. Hope the helps because I know what its like struggling through life with these symptoms and no answers.

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    1. Jessica, I consider Aspartame bad enough, that there ISN'T a safe level. May I suggest Zevia, a diet pop, made from Stevia? Thanks!

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  7. I want to note that an issue I complained about YEARS ago STILL exists. If I'm looking at candy, or cough drops, there's a "False Choice": EITHER 1) Sugar AND High Fructose Corn Syrup. OR 2) Aspartame. (Occasionally, you find 3) Sucralose, which I, personally "tolerate", but which has its OWN Health Risks).

    Aspartame SHOULD be banned, outright, but STILL has "position power", in the Marketplace.

    My full compassion for you. Cathylea. Have you recovered? Thanks!

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