Is It Or Isn't It?

I never actually mentioned before that, in addition to Wellbutrin, what made me have a nervous breakdown almost 3 years ago. Actually, the state that Wellbutrin put my head in is probably a cause of this as well, so in the end, I guess Wellbutrin and quitting Effexor cold turkey, and in addition to an extremely stressful semester of school and work were all of the cause of it.

But then I have to remember that part of it started before. Back in February of 2005, I had woken up with a urinary tract infection and had gone to the doctor. Got a urinalysis done and all that lovely stuff. Somewhere in between the visit and receiving the results, I read something on the internet about artificial sweeteners causing diabetes. Add in my current weight at the time and that, I started to worry that I had diabetes and that the urinalysis would show that I did.

Fast forward to November and the same crap happened all over again. I finally asked the doctor for a blood test and that came out with normal levels. And then right about when I started Wellbutrin, I started to notice that the eye floaters I am normally accustomed to ignoring had increased. Big time. Then it was worrying I had a detached retina. My eye doctor told me they were normal, with me being so near-sighted, so that stopped.

And then, for some reason, it started up again. And I guess Wellbutrin had my nerves so shot, that I started to believe I was seeing flashes of light as well, and then the worrying over detached retinas really hit the roof. And one day in work, I was so anxious over it, that I started to play around on the internet and came across a website that listed causes of flashes of light and everything I had seen before was there. But something new was there that I had never seen before- optic neuritis. I had never heard of it before, but by deductive reasoning and extremely good medical terminology skills, I figured it was some kind of eye nerve inflammation. I clicked on the link to learn more about that and what could cause it and there were two words there that I had remembered seeing as a side effect of artificial sweeteners as well and that blew it all up- MS.

It took me a couple of days, but I finally got over it after I realized that sweeteners only mimic it, not actually cause it. I was fine for a few days, but then one day, I thought, well, maybe I actually have it anyway. And that is when I turned into an absolute suicidal crazy ass bitch. It was horrible. I never remember being so scared of something in my life. And looking back, I don't even know why I would have ever thought I had it. I mean, initially in the beginning. After so long, I was so convinced I had it, I actually started to experience symptoms of it.

And once I quit Wellbutrin, that was the end of it. I was no longer scared I had it.

Now really actually thinking about it, I cannot see the logic in artificial sweeteners causing people to actually be diagnosed with MS. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, it is a difficult disease to diagnosis, since it can mimic so many others. But I can't understand if someone is diagnosed with it and continues to use sweeteners for several years that several years later, any clinical evidence would not show and a doctor could still diagnose them with it. I don't know how true it is whether or not a person can still have MS without any clinical evidence of lesions in brain scans, but I find it hard to believe. How can you have symptoms if there is nothing there to disrupt the nerve current running on the myelin sheath? That is the hallmark issue with MS. The myelin sheath breaks down and signals to and from the brain are disrupted. If that is true, however, I would think that sometime down the line, lesions would start to show.

In the end, it comes down to one question- who do you trust more? The government or the internet?