Do You Get Recurring Headaches

In My Humble Opinion
1

About one month ago, I started getting headaches. They happened almost every day and began almost as soon as I woke up and stayed with me until late afternoon.

The pain was such that I came to feel life was not worth living if I had to endure these headaches.

My doctor prescribed some non-Narcotic medications - Omeprazole and Naproxen. The Naproxen is used to protect the stomach from the effects of the Omeprazole.

But, I discovered what was causing these headaches on my own. I’m pretty disappointed my doctor didn’t know enough to tell me the cause.

The cause was Aspertame. That is the sweetner used in diet sodas. I really enjoyed one brand of diet Ginger Ale and I used to drink about one quart daily. I did this for about ten years. I drank it almost every single day. But the headaches only started after ten years. That was very strange.

But as soon as I stopped drinking the diet soda, the headaches vanished the very next day. About every ten days since I first stopped drinking the soda, I got a very mild headache. I think it was some kind of rebound effect.

But these headaches only happen once every ten days and the pain level is only about 20 percent what they were before.

I’m hopeful that by stopping consuming Aspertame, these headaches will all vanish eventually.

After making this discovery, I Googled “Aspertame headaches” and was amazed to learn that many, many people suffer all kinds of problems from regular consumption of Aspertame. The primary problems are headaches, tremors in the hands and short term memory loss. I suffered all of these and as soon as I stopped consuming Aspertame, they all vanished.

I am posting this info in the hope it may help any of you who suffer headaches or any of the other problems.

Besides the problems I mentioned, I read that many people actually get far more serious health problems - primarily the development of tumors - cancerous or not.

So, if any of you suffers strange health problems and consume Aspertame on a regular basis, you might want to consider eliminating Aspertame from your diet and see if that causes your problems to disappear.

Good luck to you all.

P.S. I took a guess this was the correct forum to post medical issues. I saw one thread about Urinary Tract issues and figured this was the correct forum. If it’s not, I hope some moderator will move it and not have to delete it. Thank you.

2

Did the Dr. inquire about your recent history , diet, and changes in life style? Or just prescribe something to alleviate the symptoms?

    I had a Dr. almost 40 years ago who seemed to base his very successful practice mostly on learning about his patients lifestyles and recommending changes. He became somewhat of an expert on recognizing patterns in symptoms.
3

Your doctor didn’t ask you about aspartame because there is no scientific evidence to support the information you have found on the internet.

4

My doctor did ask me about my diet and I told him that I drink about one quart of diet ginger ale every day.

To be precise, a large bottle contains 2 liters and I drank about one half a bottle every day. I think one liter is close to one quart.

My doctor had been asking me to lose weight for a long time and he asked me about my diet and other factors (like excercise) involved in losing weight. So, if the regular consumption of Aspertame does indeed cause health problems, he certainly had all the info he would need.

The numbers of people who suffer health problems seems to be extremely large.

There may well be no scientific evidence but that doesn’t mean that Aspertame is not the cause of these health problems.

I stopped consuming Aspertame one day and the very next day, my headaches were gone. This after having had them every day for about two weeks straight.

You can quote all the Scientific literature you want. But you won’t convince me that stopping the consumption of Aspertame was directly responsible for the cessation of my headaches.

If you don’t believe that Aspertame does indeed cause these health problems and you enjoy drinking diet soda, then I wish you the best of luck.

But for anyone who suffers from recurring headaches and also consumes Aspertame on a regular basis, I would suggest you stop consuming Aspetame for a few days and see what happens.

Good luck to you.

P.S. I checked and one liter is equiv to 1.06 quarts. So they are pretty well equivalent.

5

My point is that you’re “pretty disappointed” in your doctor because he didn’t tell you about aspartame, but that would be like being “pretty disappointed” in your doctor for not suggesting that a magnetic headband would solve your problems.

If you want fake science, go to a fake doctor.

Either way, I’m glad you’re feeling better.

6

Thank you Johnny.

I must admit the first time I read your post, I got the strong feeling that you were attacking me for some reason. But I was mistaken about that and I apologize for my reply. My reply wasn’t exactly nasty. But it could have been more objective.

In any case, I thank you for clearing things up and I wish you well.

7

I get recurring headaches. But I’m married so it’s to be expected.

8

That’s one of the lingering effect of Aspartame; it’s been documented.

9

Aspartame has been extensively studied and is safe for human consumption.

However, there are anecdotal reports of aspartame being a headache trigger for some people. From an article on the Science Based Medicine blog:

Emphasis added.

Let your the doctor off the hook; chronic/recurring headache is one of the most difficult and slippery conditions to treat.

It took me nearly ten years to get proper treatment for chronic migraine. You are extremely lucky to have happened upon a cause with an easy solution.

10

I don’t consume all that much aspartame, and I get a lot of headaches. (Migraines, especially). In fact, I find ginger ale (regular, not diet), helps my headaches a bit. (But only the kind with the real ginger). Other causes could also include poor eyesight, other dietary habits (there are a number of triggers), environmental factors, etc. My migraines tend to happen whenever there’s a major change in the baromentric pressure. I wouldn’t just asssume it’s one thing.

And you shouldn’t be drinking that much pop, diet or otherwise.

11

Heh. Heh. Good one!

:slight_smile:

12

I frequently have headaches, and it can be annoying trying to determine the cause sometimes. Turns out I have sleep apnea, TMJD, a deviated septum, and a minor gluten intolerance that just causes some inflammation and general stuffiness (which is then exacerbated by the deviated septum). With their powers combined… ugh.

I’m glad you were able to get rid of your headaches so easily!

13

Yes indeed. I didn’t understand why I never felt any adverse side effects during the ten years that I consumed one liter per day. But I always thought the taste was delicious and so after asking my doctor and his telling me that it was safe, I continued.

But I haven’t touched a drop in about 3 weeks now and I fully expect to spend the rest of my life without ever touching another drop. Those headaches were just so horrible that I can very well go without diet soda and it doesn’t bother me at all.

14

I appreciated your post very much.

I will and have let my doctor off the hook. AAMOF, I love this doctor. He has been treating me for more than ten years now and it was due to his help that I was able to go from 235 lbs to 155 lbs. That was about one year ago and I have kept the weight off for all that time.

Once before, in my life, I dropped that much weight but immediately put it back on. It’s hard to explain, but I believe that this doctor helped me to understand several things about weight loss and gain and it was largely due to him that I have kept the weight off.

So, I certainly do not blame him. My point was just that I would have expected he would have told me something about all these articles on the Internet and he would have mentioned that to me.

But, I certainly do not blame this doctor at all. I really do love this doctor (in a doctor - patient type of way). He is the best doctor I ever have had.

Thank you very much for making your post. For some reason, I found it to be extremely helpful.

15

I had similar kinds of headaches when I was very much younger. Turns out that I was bullied at school and the headaches came every day. They began around 9 am (when school started) and lasted until about 3:30 pm (when school stopped).

Turns out they were “stress headaches” and the reason I was getting them was due to my fear of being bullied at school.

But I thank you for your info. It was very helpful to hear from you.

I’m very happy that you were able to determine the cause of your headaches.

You might be interested in one technique that my doctor taught me.

He recommends filling small sized “zip lock” bags with one third rubbing alcohol and two thirds water and wrapping them in a small towel (like a face cloth) and then putting them in a freezer.

The alcohol prevents the water from freezing and so the mixture remains malleable.

When I was 11 or 12, I used to get stress headaches due to being bullied at school. I would wrap two ice cubes in a face cloth. But that was not nearly as effective as wrapping these bags of water and alcohol because they do not freeze and they are very easy to keep at freezing temperatures. The bags of water are much more valuable than ice cubes wrapped in a face cloth. This was one of the most valuable techniques I have ever learned. And it was taught to me by my doctor.

Glad to hear that you have also discovered the cause of your headaches. Life was truly not worth living if every day came with one of these blinding headaches. I felt as if someone stuck a knitting needle right through my head. I am very happy that I am now able to use one of these bags of frozen water & alcohol when I need relief from a headache. The medication also helps a good deal.

Best wishes to you!

16

Interesting. That’s definitely a technique I haven’t heard of.

For the most part I just try to watch my diet for the inflammation and slowly improve the sleep apnea as I lose weight, try not to exacerbate the TMJD, and use a neti pot for the nasal/sinus pressure and clean out any dust or allergens that accumulate. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of tension headaches too, and find myself stretching a lot to try to help with those.

I think I’m just stuck with a lifetime of coping techniques, since some of my problems can’t really be fixed without surgery, but at least knowing the various causes makes it more manageable than it used to be.

17

Very interesting.

I recently went to see a Podiatrist that I selected on the basis that he was the closest Podiatrist to my home.

I was quite shocked when I met him because he appeared to be about 80 years old. My first reaction was one of disappointment. I thought he was so old that he was bound to be bad at his job.

What a stupid assumption that was!

He was actually one of the best doctors I have ever met. He took a pair of special scissors and removed two of my toe nails quickly and completely without pain.

I was expecting that he would do some actual surgery. But he was able to accomplish the same result without any surgery, without any anesthetic and without any pain.

He spent most of his time discussing my lifestyle with me and the kind of shoes I wore. He made some recommendations to help me live longer and help me live a happier life.

He was truly a magnificent doctor. I feel like a real fool for my initial assumption that he was bound to be a bad doctor due to his age. A very stupid assumption.

18

Seems to me that to get an answer you should try drinking regular ginger ale instead of the diet to see if you’re having issues with another component than aspartame. Could the company have reformulated the drink? Or find a brand (don’t know of one offhand) sweetened with sucralose or acesulfame-K.

Do other non-caffeinated diet sodas than ginger ale cause this problem?

19

I thank you for your advice. But I must tell you that I was so happy once I stopped drinking this particular diet soda and seeing how the headaches immediately stopped, I would never do anything to mess with that formula (namely stop drinking this product and stop having the headaches).

I may have reacted to these headaches in a way that was much more severe than most people because I had experienced a similar problem when I was 11 or 12 years old and the headaches were so painful and so debilitating, that life was just too painful to do anything else other than lie in bed for 8 hours a day and writhe in pain.

How do you think you would cope with a life that was spent lying in bed and writhing in pain for approx 8 hours per day? How would you deal with that?

After living a somewhat normal life, being forced to live in a way that I described above, the transition was so horrible, I don’t think it’s fair to compare it with the loss of a beloved spouse or the loss of an important job when you are in the middle of making mortgage payments. But, my point is that life changed for me from a relatively normal existence to an existence that was so terrible and horrible that I honestly would not wish it upon my 2nd worst enemy. (I reserve the right to make that decision about my worst enemy if and when that decision ever had to be made).

But, in all seriousness, my point is that life just instantly became so incredibly horrible that I would have been willing to do most anything imaginable - up to and including committing murders - in order to find a way to make the pain stop.

Can you imagine such a condition? Have you ever experienced such a thing?

I would imagine that some people who were injured in a war and forced to instantly deal with the loss of one or more limbs might feel as terrible as I did. I’m not certain. But I think the two situations are relatively similar.

The same goes for most any kind of life - changing event that happened virtually instantly.

I went along for ten years drinking this soda and then … all of a sudden … I awoke one morning with a blinding headache. The pain was so extremely terrible, it felt as if someone had taken a knitting needle and stuck it through my head. This pain then came back every day - without exception - and it lasted for about 8 hours per day. It began shortly after I woke up around 9 am and it lasted until about 4pm.

Can you imagine what life would be like if you had to live with such a condition for an extended length of time? What would you do with yourself during the day? And what would you do with yourself during the evenings?

I ask these questions to try and make you think just how very much I wanted to escape this condition and that I would have been willing to do most anything imaginable in order to escape.

Giving up drinking a favorite diet soda is akin to a walk in the park compared to what some folks must give up. I’m thinking of people who lose their legs while in the prime of their lives and who depend on their legs as part of their lifestyle.

It’s simply not a question. I think most people would be willing to give up almost anything before they would be willing to give up the use of their legs or the use of their sight. Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and find that you were totally blind with no explanation as to why this happened to you?

I’m afraid I may be posting some extreme info and that may not have been necessary. But I would just like to ask people to try to understand just how immensely terrible a condition like this imposes on peoples’ lives.

20

Glad the post was helpful.

I suspect the doctor didn’t specifically mention aspartame because there are many other, more common, triggers. And typically (as I recall from my own experience), doctors don’t search for triggers immediately, they first try to get the pain under control. Many more people find drinking ginger ale/diet ginger ale helpful during a headache (I’m one of them), so it’s not a go-to answer. My doctor suggested ice to help with migraine pain. Nope, horrible for me. It makes it hurt worse. I want heat, as hot as my skin can stand. Relief is terribly variable for headache conditions.

There are a number of people on the board who get migraines, and several who have chronic migraine and/or daily headache, so there are people here who understand about the pain.