Diet drinks

After reading a couple of posts lately about fellow pilots losing their
medicals or grounding themselves, I thought I'd throw this out there to chew
on.

I recently had a round with my local Dr., AME and a neurologist. I have
been cleared to fly after experiencing "light headedness" along with some
intense feelings of deja vu, disconnectedness and having a hard time
concentrating after a "spell". The official diagnosis is Migraine Auro's
being induced by mildly high BP (and by taking the BP meds, it has helped)..

But, I have also found that I could manipulate the frequency of the "spells"
by the amount of Aspartame that I injested. Now that I have cut the
Nutrasweet completely out of my diet, the spells have stopped.

Several years ago, I received a letter from the FAA (as did everyone on
their list) warning pilots to be careful when drinking diet drinks prior to
flying. According to the letter, you could have trouble focusing,
concentrating and even issues of virtigo. Now, for the FAA to recognize
this sounds pretty huge to me. Sounds like there may be something to this
whole Aspartame Poisoning conspiracy theory that you can find out on the
web.

Anyway, don't give up flying if you have these kinds of issues. It may just
be something in the water.....

jf