Do You Get Recurring Headaches

[Charlie_Wayne]

@GrumpyBunny

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.

Given that many people do experience migraines, I would just like to add that common aspirin (or the more popular Tylenol or “Acetaminophen” (not sure about the spelling) together with 8mg of Codeine was for many years the one way to stop headache pain for me.

It was available over the counter in Drug Stores - however most doctors seem willing to prescibe the kind that requires a prescription because they contain 32mg of codeine. For some strange reason, they are commonly called Tylenol Number 3’s.

I want to mention this for anyone who experiences headache pain but who never tried these things. For many years, they were a real life saver for me.

Unfortunately, unless you take them very sparingly, they are extremely addictive and I became addicted to them and it was an awful experience.

Still, the pain of the headaches was far worse than the pain of addiction . So, I have no problem suggesting people who suffer headache pain may want to try those pills. My experience was that they stopped the pain almost immediately after I took them. But I feel the need to say:

WARNING! CODEINE is a narcotic and is extremely addictive. Best to take these under a doctor’s care. Best to ask a doctor how to avoid becoming addicted to them.
However, the bottom line for me is that it’s really wonderful to find someone who is willing to be supportive and I thank you very much for that.

[Charlie_Wayne]

@No_umlaut_for_U

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?

If the problem is the “Aspertame”, then other diet sodas will cause this problem if they contain Aspertame. My understanding is that most diet sodas use this chemical to artificially sweeten sodas.

I can’t be certain that Aspertame is the single determining factor. But as I said above, I’m certainly not willing to try doing anything else, given that what I’m currently doing (meaning the cessation of drinking this particular diet soda) is sufficient to make the pain stop virtually overnight. I’m just not willing to try doing anything else. I am overjoyed that I discovered one way to make the pain stop and I’m not willing to mess with that. I will not drink this soda anymore and so long as I don’t experience any more headache pain, I am not willing to try doing anything else.

[kayaker]

@Charlie_Wayne

The Naproxen is used to protect the stomach from the effects of the Omeprazole.

NitPick: omeprazole is prescribed to protect the stomach from the effects of naproxen.

[Charlie_Wayne]

@kayaker

NitPick: omeprazole is prescribed to protect the stomach from the effects of naproxen.

Oops. OK. I thank you for correcting me about that.