I recently quit Splenda cold turkey after finally linking the product to a range of symptoms, varying from frequent bloating to irregularity. For two years I was using large amounts of Splenda, sold on the concept that since it was "made from sugar" it must be pure and safe. Au contraire.

To specify, I used about 3-4 packets in my morning coffee (6oz each serving), and I had about 5 cups of coffee each time. I also made "splenda" sweetened tea at home, using about 3 cups of the product for the gallon. I would consume about 4-5 glasses of this daily.
I didn't originally start out using this much, but it seems I built up a "tolerance" to the product, so I needed more to feel a true sweetened taste.

When I read an article in a magazine, I realized that my symptoms of bloating, constipation, irratibility, and more could possibly be linked to this product. I decided to eliminate it just to see if the symptoms disappeared. They did. Completely.

I will not use Splenda anymore. I've switched to Stevia and plain sugar. I'm taking NAC to help elimnate Splenda completely from my body. I hope others will quit too!

I Started to use SPLENDA instead of sugar, believing as so many do that it's from sugar, so how can that be bad for you? So I developed severe bladder problems, had many test, went to 6 different doctors, none could find any physical reason for my problems. I tried to search for the answer, and experimented with many foods, different diets, and finally came to the conclusion that my problems started shortly after my switch from sugar to SPLENDA. Since I have stopped using this produch my symptoms have faded. I have been in acute pain/discomfort for 10 months before I came to the realization of the what was causing all the problems I was having.

I purchased a half-gallon of ice cream with splenda as the sweetener. I was not aware of the risk involved with the product, nor the countless testimonies that arose from it's adverse effects. I ate a small amount last night and within 30 minutes had broken out all over my body. The welts are white and raised. It is now 11:32 a.m. and I am still in misery!!!I do not recommend this product for anyone. Does anoyone have an idea as to how long it will last or ideas for possible treatment?

My wife has been using Splenda for seveal years in her coffee(3 packets per cup) and 2 cups of coffee per day.She had switched to the Splenda after having been on Equal for many years and experiencing side effects.Two years ago,she went to Miami for 5 weeks and came home sick-high blood pressure(bp) and cholesterol,stomach problems,tired,etc.She finally had to go on blood pressure medications.It took the Doctor 5 months and 3 different meds at once(a cocktail of drugs) to get her bp down from 169 to 130.I had her on a bunch of supplements for inflammation cholesterol and oxidants.She just returned again from 5 weeks Miami,this time sicker than before-literally bed-ridden,itchy all over,frequent urination,insomnia,puffy eyes,sore muscles,swollen arthritic knuckles,C-Reactive Protein(CRP-a measure of inflammation) at 15.8,total cholesterol 260,LDL 140,tryglycerides 250-all significantly higher than before she left for Miami.A Doctor visit to go over the post-Miami blood test results showed that the Doctor was dumbfounded.After she had been home 2 weeks,I discovered the problem is Splenda toxicity as my wife is Cuban and in Miami she drinks a lot of Cuban coffee sweetened with Splenda.In other words her Splenda consumption doubles whenever she goes to Miami resulting in her always returning ill!I understand biochemistry and know that Splenda(sucralose) is a man-made chemical which like ALL man-made chemicals,including prescription drugs, is toxic to the body.Some are just more toxic than others.Toxins,like sucralose are metabolized by P450 enzymes in the liver and end up as mtabolites, which are different compounds produced by the liver from the sucralose,which are often more toxic than sucralose.If a person has a fatty liver which is undissolved fat pockets in the liver,continual activation of P450 liver enzymes results in oxidation or burning of the liver fat,analagous to burning the fat on steaks on a barbecue.Liver fat oxidation activates the immune system releasing the inflammatory cytokine TNF which causes oxidation of bad cholesterol,LDL,in blood vessels,an increase of LDL and tryglycerides,reduction of HDL,increase of blood pressure and increase in the inflammaatory marker CRP.Over time the increased TNF increases the left ventricular heart chamber resulting in congestive heart failure,shortness of breath and angina(cjest pain) and results in NASH which is chronic liver failure(Hepatitis/Cirrhosis).As the sucralose metabolites leave the body through the colon,bladder and skin,they create problems:diarrhea,frequent urination and itchiness due to the Histamine released by the skin Langherhan cells as they explode from eating the toxins.Sucralose,like all toxins,inluding Aspartmame, agitate the NMDA receptors in the brain releasing Nitric Oxide,a gas which is toxic to the Hypothalamus and memory cells in the brain resulting in multiple endocrine and brain disorders including insomnia weight gain,irritability,memory loss and headaches.All of the symptoms of Splenda use are classic toxicity symptoms unknown to Doctors due to their lack of training in toxicity,including drug reactions.

when I eat anything that has splenda in it, I get headaches, feel tired & lethargic, can't sleep well, do not have any energy, irritable have chest pains, dry itchy skin, scalp itches intensely. And it is worse on my 2 daughters 8/11. Needless to say we do not use splenda or aspartame at all. And are trying stevia now.

I have been using Splenda only now and then and had no adverse effects. But recently I've used about 3 tsp. every day because I've been on a low-calorie diet. Lately, I'd been having a lot of trouble getting a night's sleep, waking up and not being able to fall back to sleep. I did not connect this to Splenda until one day when I had a decent night's sleep and thought back to what was different the day before. The only thing I could think of was that I had no Splenda that day. I stopped using it and I've been sleeping through the night ever since. I have seen nothing about this reaction from anyone else.

This makes me wonder if there are a lot of Splenda users now adding to their problems by taking Lunesta and other sleep aids, not realizing that it's Splenda that is interfering with their sleep!

I've always thought the hype about artificial sweeteners was a conspiracy by the sugar industry and other artificial sweetener manufacturers and often predicted that any new sweetener product would be taken off the market sooner or later. Now I'm thinking artificial sweeteners could actually be toxic and that it is not a conspiracy.

I have been using the Crystal Light single use packets to help get my water in each day and I have seen a increase in the need and urgency to urinate frequently . . . I don't always have this problem but it has been getting progressively worse . . .I believe I will stop the Crystal Lights and see if that alleviates the problem . . .if so then the splenda is the reason why because otherwise I drink water.

I just recently stopped eating any artifical sweetener. I was mostly eating Splenda but had recently started drinking soda with aspertame.

It's been a week and the last couple of nights I've been waking up in the middle of the night. Just wide awake. I eventually go back to sleep, but after a couple of hours of being awake. I always sleep through the night.

I have a constant low grade headache, I'm irritated and I have no energy. Now I don't know if this is due to the lack of sleep or the withdrawals, but I just thought I'd post my symtoms here.

2 years ago I was on no sugar low calorie diet. I was using Splenda to sweeten everything. On September 2nd 2004 I had what I thought was an allergic reaction. My mouth broke out into sores and blood blisters. My tongue was swollen. I thought it was just something weird and discounted it. It kept happening. I went to see doctors and they said they had never seen anything like it. I was tested for Lupus and had biopsy done. I went to specialists and got no definate answers. I also had pains in my wrist and elbows and felt tired and very weak. I also lost a lot wieght with no explanation. I told some of the doctors that I thougth it could be from Sucralose. I stopped using it and all the pain went away. My mouth stopped breaking out too. Now I know when I start having symptoms I must have had something with sucralose in it. I will go look in my cupboard and look at the coffee creamer or look at what I ate and find the ingrediants contain sucralose. It is even in mouthwash.What makes me really angry is that they do not have to mark the labels "contains artificial sweetener" Sucralose is in everything.

I have been having very low white blood cell counts. I am due to have a bone marrow biopsy next week. In the meantime, my sister alerted me to the possibility that Splenda lowered white blood cell counts in rats in trials. Does anyone know if this could also happen in humans. I am otherwise very healthy and have no symptoms of ill health or compromised immunity. I use 100 packets of Splenda per day.

February 27, 2006 I became very suddenly violently ill with diarrhea and vomiting while at a party. I had been drinking Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda and eating bridge mix. After 40 minutes of vomiting and dishrag, the paramedics were called. Being a Type 2 diabetic, my blood sugar was 167 and my blood pressure was 154 over 90. The paramedics decided I needed fluids and transported me to the emergency room.

The paramedics started fluids in the ambulance, and the hospital ER staff took blood and gave me something intravenously to stop the nausea. The ER doctor was very concerned, as my white count was 19,000, I was very pink skinned, and I was running a low-grade temperature near 100. He was concerned that I had toxic shock syndrome. The time of the test results was midnight.

I was kept in the hospital overnight for observation and my white count was down to 13,000 by 8 AM in the morning. I stayed in the hospital until 2 PM, when I requested to leave, since there were many incidents of flu, and I felt well enough to go home. I returned home and felt fine after a couple of days. Note that I do not ordinarily vomit when ill – it had been over 25 years since I can remember vomiting.

At 3:30 AM on the morning of March 26, 2006, I was awakened by a rumbling in my stomach, and again experienced diarrhea and severe vomiting. Living alone, I considered again calling the paramedics, but didn’t want to panic. I called my personal physician at home at 6 AM, told him about my previous hospitalization from a few weeks ago, and he prescribed Compazine and Lomotil. Once the Compazine stopped the vomiting, he told me to drink Coke with sugar, apple juice and eat jelly with honey – in order to rehydrate – for the next few days. Again thinking I had a relapse of the flu, I felt better a few days later. I had not made any Splenda connection at this point, but in checking back, I had dinner at Culvers that night and ordered a Diet Coke (which happened to be sweetened with Splenda, after checking with the restaurant).

Two days later I used one package of Splenda in a large coffee from McDonalds. About one hour later, the nausea began. Vomiting did not start, but a remained nauseated for the next two days, so I took Compazine to keep it under control.

The next day I went to put a package of Splenda into a glass of iced tea, and something in my mind said: “Don’t use the Splenda. This is a new sweetener that you’ve switched to in the last couple of months – since McDonald’s started offering it.” I’ve always been a Sweet and Low user, since Equal tends to stuff my nose and I’ve avoided the powder form of Nutrasweet since it introduction to the market – but I’ve had no problem using aspartame that has been added to products. I used Sweet and Low and had no problem.

I then went online and searched Splenda and found out the many problems that others have had with the product. So, I decided to avoid it completely and not use it. I started looking at labels to avoid Splenda in products that I use.

Three months later I was fine, having not used any Splenda. No more bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. One evening around 11 PM I decided to make a smoothie, using fresh pineapple, skim milk, a Dannon Light and Fit strawberry yogurt and ice. I went to bed around midnight and was awakened again by the rumbling in my stomach and nausea and dishrag around 4 AM. I immediately started the Compazine and I looked at the empty Dannon Light and Fit yogurt container – it is now sweetened by Splenda!! Needless to say, Splenda is food poisoning me.

After discussing this problem with my doctor, he has advised me that I must check every label, ask questions of all bakeries, cooks, restaurants, hosts and hostesses – this situation could be “life threatening” to me since I had such a strong reaction after a three month avoidance and then ingesting only the small amount in a yogurt cup. He has instructed me that if this rumbling illness ever hits again, to get myself to the ER immediately.

This experience with Splenda has been horrible – and expensive. After my medical insurance has picked up over $4,000 in bills, it has personally cost me $2,000 out of pocket for my deductible and my share of the medical.

All you might be right about the negative long term effects of artificial sweeteners. And I totally concur that aspartame is probably deleterious to one's health; but i've been using sucralose (Splenda) rather heavily for years and so far haven't suffered any ill effects as many on this site describe. I sleep well, i look good, no digestive problems, all liver panel and blood tests are normal and i'm not growing horns out of my head.
Splenda's the only sweetener I can really tolerate; I haven't had any reason to give it up yet. Perhaps time will tell.
I've tried Stevia (yuk, too bitter) and I use xylitol (which i like but it isn't appropriate for everything) and so far Splenda is far and away my favorite choice.
Lo Han (syrup from the Lo Han fruit from China) used to be available under the name of HerbaSweet but for some reason they no longer make it. Too bad, because the stuff was totally natural and tasted great. You can still buy it in granulated form but it's not the same. If anyone knows where I can get the syrup form please let me know.
Good luck and good health to everyone.

For at least a year I have been very attentive to avoiding foods with aspartame or Splenda (sucralose) for myself and family. For tea, coffee, and baking I have been using organic raw sugar. Last night, however, I wanted something for a dessert. I decided to make a cherry pie. The only pie filling I had in my cupboard had Splenda in it. I figured it probably wouldn't hurt to use it just this once. I didn't like the aftertaste but I ate one small piece of the pie between 10 and 11 pm. At 2:30 am I was up with bloating, cramping, and diahrrea. I was up again at 5:30 and had problems again at 8:30. It is now almost 2 pm and I have been fine since 8:30. I am convinced that my body was reacting to the Splenda and am going upstairs to throw away that pie before anyone else in my family eats it. I know I have been right to avoid Splenda and I will definiely be more careful in the future.

I have been 'addicted' to Diet RC for a few years now. Lately, I've been drinking more and more, sometimes a whole 2 liter bottle in one day, and am now experiencing frequen diarrhea. After reading about splenda/sucralose on the internet and discovering the many problems people have had, I can point alot of other things that have happened to me directly to my consumption of this toxic chemical. I poured out all my soft drinks and dumped a whole jar of splenda powder in the trash. It's only been a week but I'm already experiencing a difference.

All I can say to you all is STAY AWAY FROM SPLENDA.

I Have a seizvre disorder from a head injury when i was three and a high fever when I was five I had granmal seizures at age of 15 I had the seizures for 3 years and I went to Duke University for test and posible surgery. The test indicated that I was having seizures from the left temprollobe area so they did surgery and found scar tissue on that side of my brain the surgery went find and there was apossibility of still having seizures becaus of the area where they did the surgery. That was in 1983 now October 2006 I still have small seizures but thru experimenting with my diet I noticed I have them more when I eat or drink something with any artificial sweetners especially aspertame. I also have alergic reactions to artificial colars like red40 gives me mouth ulcers yellow 5 gives headaces and other colars cause me to be real moody. That is why I wanted to read your artical and share with you what I believe is the cause of alot of problems with the artificial sweetners and colars I hope this commit will be benificial.
Thankyou,
Mrs Sandy West

My 21 month old daughter has been having diarrhea on and off for a little while now. Tonight as I was giving her some Children's Dimetapp for sneezing and congestion, I suddenly realized what the problem may be. I immediately looked at the label to see what the ingredients were and got online when I discovered that it contained sucralose. It all started to make sense to me. She first started to have these problems last winter when she had a piece of birthday cake that had frosting sweetened with Splenda. Every time that I give her the medicine, she has extremely foul smelling watery loose stools. I feel really bad that I didn't realize this before. Tonight she looked at me and said "My tummy hurts" This is just terrible that something that is giving people diarrhea is allowed to be used in children's products. I'm definitely going to go and report this on the FDA website and call Dimetapp and let them know. I'm going to watch and make sure that she doesn't ingest any more of this awful stuff.

I had an adverse reaction to splenda. I contacted the FDA. It seems as though they are ignoring me. The person I spoke to expressed no concern, but seemed defensive and uninterested.

I recently bought some "carb-free" Nestle's Instant Cocoa without reading the label. I went home and happily made a cup of this. As I drank, I started getting a headache and detected an "artificial sweetner" taste. I looked at the label and saw that it contained sucralose (Splenda). A few minutes later, I broke out in a mild rash on my upper arms. Into the garbage went the cocoa/poison, and I made myself a cup of tea.
I do NOT ingest any artificial sweetners and had a rapid and very uncomfortable reaction!

I recently joined Weight Watchers and they tout Splenda all over the recipe boards. I intend to email them, and others on the program should, too.
A friend of mine lost 30 pounds on Weight Watchers without ever having any artificial sweetner.

My five year old daughter broke out in red welts and splotches after having ice tea and cheesecake with Splenda in it. We took her to the emergency room since the welts were taking over her entire body. She had continual runny stools and could not sleep at night. After she was put on steroids to try and control the rash (benadryl didn't work) we tracked it back to the Splenda my husband and I had used on the South Beach diet. My husband also had numbness in his tongue and trouble sleeping. This is a very dangerous product that we fell in love with until we realized it was poisoning our bodies. South Beach diet recommends Splenda.

I am a fifty year old white male who teaches fourteen Yoga classes a week in Nashville Tennessee. I began using Splenda about nine months ago as a part of my weight management program. I lost thirty pounds last year by dropping wheat and milk from my diet, but I reintroduced them during the summer and stopped losing weight. I wanted to stay away from extra calories, so Splenda was a convenient way of replacing sugar. At the most I was using five or six teaspoons per day...not very much, so I felt it couldn't possibly be harmful.

By the middle of summer, I began experiencing fatigue. I attributed it to the excessive heat coupled with teaching a huge number of Yoga classes. In August I develpoed a case of shingles which was not particularly painful, but left me very tired. I recovered slowly and even by Christmas, I felt that I was not back to my usual level of energy.

At New Year's I began to experience excessive joint aching accompanied by muscle cramping, excessive twitching at night and restless legs. My shoulders and knees began making popping sounds and I had to refrain from sitting on the floor in Yoga classes because of the pain in my knees. I began to require long afternoon naps in order to maintain my daily routines.

A friend told me about the potential danger of using Splenda, so I stopped using it abruptly about four weeks ago. Within two days I began to feel better. By this point the muscle fatigue and twitching have disappeared, I am returning to my old level of energy and my shoulders have stopped aching. My knees have improved but are still not perfect so I have not returned to sitting on the floor just yet.

It's hard to imaging that something so simple could create such havoc, but this has been a learning experience. I attribute my improvement to ceasing the use of Splenda.