Mundane Discovery

I consistenly react negatively to an artificial sweetener. But it's not aspartame; it's acesufame potassium (or the combination of aspartame & acesulfame potassium). Unintended experiment: I have some Diet Dr. Pepper & some Diet Cherry Coke. I noticed that after I drank the Coke, every time, my forehead went numb & tingly, and my ears went stuffy. This isn't an unknown set of sensations, but the causation seems fairly direct. If I drank the Dr. Pepper, even if I drank two of them, it didn't happen. As it happens, the Pepper is sweetened with aspartame, the Coke with a combination of aspartame & acesulfame K. The Internet says the potassium sweetener can cause allergic reactions in people allergic to sulfites--which might explain why I get exactly the same sensations after I've been drinking red wine.

Also, it's amusing that I can take Accutane for 5 months with none of the fabled horrible side effects, and am brought down by soda.

In the meantime.... anyone want my Diet Cherry Coke? (I know you don't. None of you live in Bloomington. And I've just written a post accusing it of bad things. But it's the only way I could think of to end this post.)