Wednesday, February 3, 2010

My Science Experiment


I am here to confess that I am a Diet Coke lover. I only have one a day….well, maybe two….but that’s it. I swear.

But I’ve come to find out that Diet Coke doesn’t love me.

A few years ago, I found I was disoriented, dizzy, “out to lunch”, and had lots of headaches. I finally realized it was the aspartame (Nutra Sweet) in the Diet Coke that was causing this. When I switched to regular (full strength!), all these symptoms went away. It was wild.

After a while though, I missed my old friend so switched back. I thought I’d be clever this time and outfox my Diet Coke. I started drinking Diet Coke with Splenda. It was a new product and rated to be much safer than aspartame.

Perhaps nine months have gone by since I made the switch. Maybe a year…I am not sure.

Ah, a year of bliss. I was in heaven.

But then strange things began to happen.

I noticed that my vision was blurry. It was only in one eye at a time and never the same one. Odd. I thought it was my contacts but when I took them out and wore glasses, nothing changed.

Hmmm.

I noticed other things too: breakouts on my face, headaches, foggy brain, and fatigue.

Hmmm.

I chalked it up to stress. After all, my life can be stressful.

I happened to mention to my principal about my weird eye thing….had to wear my glasses to school that day. First time in ten years. She immediately called in the school nurse who took my blood pressure.

Guess what? My blood pressure was elevated.

Another hmmmm.

The nurse said, “Well, it’s not like you’re stressed or anything, right?”

(insert tongue in cheek)


I know I’m stressed, don’t sleep extremely well at times, have not been exercising, and probably don’t eat the best (especially when life is really busy), but I had not expected this. Before running to the doctor, I thought I’d make a few life-style changes to see if that helped.

Well, two days ago, I got the brilliant idea to google Splenda.

Guess what I found? In some cases, people are super sensitive to this additive.

Guess what else? They display the same symptoms I have…including increased blood pressure. Toss in the headaches treated with ibuprofen, there is another blood pressure increase.

So, I kissed my old friend goodbye and will never return.

Forty-eight hours after being Splenda free, I had no vision issues at school today. None.

Kinda makes me wonder.

What about you?

8 comments:

Jboo said...

Wow -- that IS very interesting! Good experiment -- are you switching to coffee or tea?

Janet

Kristin said...

Don't like coffee so that's out! Will switch to regular coke and unsweetened ice tea. =)

a Tonggu Momma said...

Ack! I'm a Diet Coke addict! And I have terrible exercise habits (or should I say lack of habits?). And I do live with sleeplessness and headaches. No vision issues so far. But you've made me think...

Laura L. said...

Hmm...this makes me think too. We keep a lot of diet drinks in the house, and my fave is Diet Coke.

I do have some headaches, breakouts and etc. It would be interesting to try to cut those drinks out for a while and see what happens.

I think I'll do a little Googling myself and check these things out.

Carey-Life in the Carpool Lane said...

I'm a Coke Zero drinker. I have one faithfully every afternoon and when I don't I actually have caffeine withdrawls. How crazy is that?

Faith, Hope, and Love said...

That is amazing...wow! Its scary that stuff is legal and you have to wonder how many others are having the same type of issues and have not clue why. I'm so glad you figured it out before being put thru tons of invasive testing.

Have a great weekend!
Robin

Livin' out loud said...

WOW! That is so interesting.

Ivy Shaffer said...

OH MY GOODNESS! I never knew about this. Glad you found out because now it's an easy fix. I'm a splenda junkie for my java, hmmm maybe that explains my insomnia lately.

Hope you're doing okay these days.

Happy CNY!

Ivy