Night Terrors

For a few years now Oldest Boy has suffered periodically from night terrors. If you don't know what those are, they suck. Basically, he seems to be awake and he runs around screaming and not really making any sense. Because I am a scientist by training (I used to be an analytical chemist), I just knew there had to be a cause. For months I recorded everything he ate, drank, and played with so that I could determine what was making this happen to our baby. Finally, we linked them to aspartame, (brand name Nutrasweet). Yeah, that supposedly "safe" sugar substitute. And you would not BELIEVE the stuff it's in! The main culprit for us? The Light Lemonade by MinuteMaid that they serve at McDonald's! Oldest Boy loves lemonade and when we were at Disney World when he was 3 we ate there a lot. It wasn't until a few months later that I made the connection, though.

The real kicker is that this horrid chemical is in a large variety of children's products, particularly medications! I can't even get him fluoride tablets without it! And, of course, a lot of the time I find out the hard way. Last winter he developed a high fever which required treatment with Motrin. He hates the liquid stuff, so I picked up some chewables. You guessed it. He woke up that night, so I quickly checked the label. Bingo! Aspartame. He had an ear infection that was treated with a chewable. That time I wised up and checked the inactive ingredients before I paid for it. Really, it's getting ridiculous. There will never be any amount of evidence or research that will prove to me that this is a safe material, particular for ingestion by small children! I know in this day and age when obesity is becoming a problem at younger and younger ages that you have to way the pros and the cons. The biggest problem that I have is that there are alternatives! USE THEM! And quit sneaking it in my kids' food and medicine. Sheesh!

This topic reared its ugly head now because he has another ear infection that is being treated with a different antibiotic (biaxin). Two nights last week he woke up with night terrors. I cannot find aspartame listed on the ingredients list, but I'm pretty certain it has to be in there. There's an ingredient labeled "fruit punch flavor" which is my main suspect. Because there are people with an extreme sensitivity to phenylalanine, they are supposed to list aspartame and give a "warning" (that right there should tell you that using it is a bad idea), but no one can find it listed anywhere on this product. It is POSSIBLE that the medication itself is causing this reaction as well. I hate it. It totally messes with his mind which is what makes me more nervous than anything. What if it gets messed up one too many times? What happens if we can't get it back to normal? There are other people who have issues with it as well, not just my boy. My grandmother used to get a severe headache every time she ate it. There's a woman who I used to work with who blacks out when she has it (so much so that her doctor told her there was a good possibility that the next time she might not wake up. nice.). My question is, what can I do? The best I've got right now is to make sure that everyone I know knows about it. So, dear internet readers, consider this your wake up call. Purge it from your system, your cupboards, your kids. It is dangerous. And the makers of Nutrasweet can kiss my butt if they don't like it.