Sweet Headache

I noticed a few days ago that my lips and the inside of my mouth felt tingly and slightly swollen, as if I'd eaten something extremely acidic or maybe something I was mildly allergic to. I considered the meal I'd just eaten and didn't see anything there I haven't had before. Maybe it was a stress reaction... the sensation faded after an hour or so, and I went about my way.

Later that evening, it came back. I hadn't eaten anything since dinner, though, except for the diet soda I have most nights. I checked the label, and discovered that the soda was sweetened with aspartame. (Much to my surprise -- I thought most soda was sweetened with Splenda these days.) I re-considered my dinner, and there was nothing artificially sweetened about it -- but I'd had a "juice drink" earlier that afternoon with aspartame in it.

Huhn. Well, okay, I decided I'd cut aspartame out of my diet for a week or so, and if the tingling didn't come back, I could try another diet soda at the end of it and if that provoked a reaction, well, I'd have my culprit. I went out and found myself a soda without aspartame to drink, and stopped sharing Penny's Crystal Light, and since I use Splenda for all my other fake-sugar needs, that's that, right?

Except I was at lunch just now with some people from work, and my lips started tingling. I was surprised, because I'd used saccharin in my iced tea (they didn't have Splenda). I even uncrumpled the package to make sure that Equal hadn't suddenly changed colors on me... Nope, saccharin. WTF?

And then it hit me: I'd had some chewing gum before lunch to stave off the snackies. When I got back to work, I checked the gum wrapper, and sure enough: aspartame.

Guess I've got my culprit.

Grocery shopping will be a hoot -- Penny needs to avoid real sugar if it can be helped, Matt has a fairly severe reaction to Splenda, and now I need to avoid aspartame. Whee! (Also, if anyone knows of a Splenda-based replacement for Crystal Light, let me know. I looked through three different stores and couldn't find one.)

Sigh.