Thanks for a wonderful post, dllfo! I can't stand Aspartame. Never could get past the taste.

I was using Splenda for the past year and after I quit smoking my body went haywire. Then I ran out of Splenda for a bit. I discovered that Splenda was causing blood sugar issues for me. Since I quit using it I've had only one episode of hypoglycemia in the past month or so when before and at it's worst it was every day if I wasn't extremely careful. It was such a dramatic change is why I noticed it. Needless to say I don't plan on going back to the Splenda. I may give the Stevia formulation a try when it becomes available because it's plant based.

Every person is different and some of us are more sensitive than others to things in our environments. I've learned to think about what's around me and what I'm putting into and onto my body, as Monica said, especially when I'm having a flare or if something odd is going on with my body. It's a slow process this learning that I'm more vulnerable than I ever supposed before. I'm learning what are sure triggers and I'm learning *how* to pay attention to my body at a level I wasn't even aware of before. It's kind of like learning to meditate I think in that I've had to learn to pay attention to things on a level I wasn't even really aware of before.