Aspartame Causing My Wrist Pain?

Marijke Durning, RN — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:25:43 +0000

This is a purely anecdotal post, without peer-reviewed studies to back anything up, but I think it’s an important enough issue to discuss here anyway.

I’m a 48-year-old woman with joint pain that goes back many years. It comes and goes in many of my joints, but doesn’t usually last more than a few days – a couple of weeks at the most.

My lifestyle isn’t unhealthy, but it could be healthier. I don’t usually drink sodas (soft drinks) or high sugar drinks and I don’t eat a lot of junk – I don’t have the taste for it. But, I also don’t exercise as much as I should and I could eat a few more fruits and vegetables throughout the week. I’m also someone who stresses easily, so this isn’t all that healthy either. But, I’m doing ok most of the time.

About three or four weeks ago, I developed joint pain in my left wrist. At first, I didn’t think much of it as it’s not unusual, but it got progressively worse over the next few weeks. I couldn’t bear any weight on it, like I would when getting up from a lying position and off the bed, for example.

Another thing I started doing about five weeks ago, was drinking Diet Coke at least three times a week (something I’d never done before) and chewing gum with aspartame, at least once a day, if not more often (something I’d done rarely). I don’t know why I started drinking the Coke or chewing the gum.

Then, I stopped doing both – the Coke and the gum. Just because I felt like it. And my wrist pain reduced dramatically. It’s still tender from time to time, but it’s nowhere as severe as it was before.

Of course, I can’t prove that it was cause and effect. It could be total coincidence that the wrist pain eased off as I stopped taking in aspartame, but a little bit of research turned up that a lot of people seem to be reporting the same types of reactions. In this piece, MY PAINFUL EXPERIENCE WITH ASPARTAME AND ARTHRITIS by author Richard J. Sabates, M.D., Dr. Sabates reports having severe pain that only went away once he eliminated aspartame from his diet.

A quick search on Google shows many people who connected some sort of pain or discomfort to their consumption of aspartame. Dr. Sabates, in his piece, suggests that the fact that studies about aspartame being a problem are hushed up because of money. That’s definitely an uncomfortable idea – but aspartame is a huge, huge money maker. Could this be true?

I never drank diet drinks before because I didn’t like the aftertaste of the aspartame. I think I tried to get over that because I wanted to drink Coke but I didn’t want all the sugar in it. I didn’t drink it for the caffeine – caffeine doesn’t do anything to me. I just wanted it for the taste. But now, I’m not taking any chances. No more aspartame for me.