This is a reply to # 1,902,949

To start the process of healing up your headaches, I reccommend dropping the diet sodas, my friend. Here's the info on it at length 'Aspartame the silent killer'

.. But of course I'll try to sum it up at length for you. Apartame is a sweetner in the cholrine family, developed in the 1960s when chemists were experimenting with the different uses for chlorine biproducts. They discovered by accident that it had a sweetness factor. It's been brought up several times by research doctors for banning by the FDA, but sadly it has been kept in production because of financial influence by various food manufacturers, Coca Cola being one of the main ones. 

Basically, the aspartame breaks down into two bi-products in the body that are neurotoxins. One of the biproducts is glutamate- a neurotransmitter that is present naturally in the body.. but ends up in your system in extremely high amounts when you take in aspartame (nutrasweet and a few other names). This basically overexcites nerves, and it tends to get into the brain a bit too easily, because it crosses the blood-brain barrier very easily. 

Secondly, it also breaks down into a biproduct in the body that is chemically similar to formaldahyde, a formula used for preserving specimens for scientific study in jars. It's quite poisonous, and I'm sorry to say, attacks the nerves too. 

---Artificial sweetners and weight gain---

There's a separate side to aspartame- it excites the intestines to form fat cells. The intestines, surprisingly, have the ability to 'taste' the material passing through them- similar to the taste receptors on your tongue. The simple rule is, that if it tastes sweet to your tongue, it will taste sweet to your gut, and it'll send the signals to form fat. 

In reguards to your migranes, this issue with aspartame can also give you pretty bad headaches. Aspartame cheats the gut by promising sugar it can't deliver- your body is cheated into producing insulin because of the taste of sweet, but when there is no sugar calories for the insulin to use, your bloodsugars plummet. When this happens, you'll get a bad headache that likely lasts at least one to two hours. This is because your brain uses over half of the calories you eat- it's the biggest muscle/food-consumer in your body. When there is more insulin than sugar in your body, your brain will suffer because of the bloodsugar crash. Trust me, it's not pleasant! 

---What to do?---

I reccommend grabbing some stevia for when you you need sugary stuffs- it's the one artificial sweetner that's actually nutritious, and it's good and strong. Perfect for teas and cooking. I saw it on the store shelf just two days ago, but I live in Denmark, so it's a good question if anyone but the internet, healthfood stores and wholefoods will have it! Still worth it. 

When you have a soda craving, get real soda, not the artificially sweetened crap. It's literally killing your head, so quite banging your head against a wall and buy a little of the real thing. My hubby and I agreed to limit our sugar days to saturdays, and it works. It's good to be realistic when making a lifestyle change. 

Carbonated flavored sodawater.. Not perrier, it's nasty! Go for some of the grocery-store generic-brand sparkling water with lime, lemon, raspberry or cherry-flavor. After getting type 1 diabetes, I've learned to love it. 

---And the aspartame?---

Real story, when I first got type 1 diabetes, my legs were numb in the skin for months because my high bloodsugar levels made nerve damage there. They got better within two weeks of getting insulin, but after two weeks on high-aspartame foods to try and make life easier as a diabetic, I lost sensation in the skin of my legs again. It was like they were anestetized with lidocane. Literally, it eats away at your nerves. 

My husband also has an aspartame allergy - one glass of artifically-sweetened soda, and his throat swells up so that he can't breathe. He's been to the hospital for it two times. 

If you read the articile above about Aspartame indepth, you'll learn that lots of people have symptoms of muscular dystrophy, etc.. and when they go off artificially-sweetened stuff, the symptoms go away.