Aspartame Withdrawal

[diabetic12yrs]

I'm putting this here as I am a Type 1 Diabetic. Early January I started drinking more water than usual. I stopped drinking coke zero which I always drank for most of my life and quite heavily over Christmas. I started feeling like my body was not right. Anxiety levels were very high. I felt I was always thirsty and going to the toilet alot but had no ketones. My sleep was disturbed, 2 weeks later every thing got worse, with body aches and pains, panic attacks, anxiety levels so high and little sleep, I thought I was going to die. I thought I had symptoms of various illness ( it's hard to explain)
After a very bad meltdown last Saturday morning I have finally felt my days improving, (I think I am coming out the other side of what has been hell) sugar levels are getting more in range although I'm having a lot of low ones.
Has anyone at all had this happen to them

 

[Indy51]

I think @zand had problems with aspartame, but not sure if her symptoms were similar to yours or not (she is Type 2, not Type 1).

 

[zand]

Thanks for tagging me @Indy5I

One or two of my symptoms were similar.
I was certainly more thirsty. I had had disturbed sleep and muscle pains on a regular basis for years. I am not sure if aspartame made them worse. Until now I blamed insulin resistance for the muscle pains and self imposed bad sleep patterns when i trained myself to wake frequently because i was concerned about waking to check on my baby years before. Maybe the aspartame addiction made them worse? I didn't notice them get worse when i was in withdrawal though.

I wasn't diabetic at the time so don't know about about ketone or BG levels.

I now realise that my recurrent throat infections were probably down to aspartame as when i have occasionally slipped and had another diet coke my voice and throat 'aren't right'.

When I was in withdrawal the urge to have 'just one' was almost unbearable. I got really bad headaches and shooting pains up from my jaw. I had never been a 'headachy' person before then. It took me a few years to really kick the habit.

Anxiety? Well yes...that was a problem but mostly i think there were other causes for that.

What you say about having symptoms of various illnesses rings true with me. Generally I just didn't 'feel right'.

I don't think I have been much help to you as like Indy says I am T2 but I guess everyone is unique so you may not have the same symptoms as another T1 anyway.

Sounds like you are doing well with giving up as your symptoms are improving

 

[sno0opy]

Hows your caffeine intake in general? I had a bit of trouble with things when i dropped coffee to reduce blood pressure? If you have been drinking loads of coke and suddenly stop you have also reduced your caffeine intake significantly which has all sorts of varied withdrawal symptoms

"Common symptoms include headache, fatigue, low energy, irritability, anxiety, poor concentration, depressed mood and tremors, which can last anywhere from two to nine day"

Just a thought

 

[diabetic12yrs]

I have never felt so worse in my entire life. Muscle aches and pains, fatigue, tremors,m low. At the moment it's more coming in waves. If you saw me before Christmas and then last week you wouldn't think I was the same person. And neither did I. Very erratic. Crying every day for the last month. As I said though, coming out the other end of it now