Hydrogen???😲 😱 Seriously, don't ever try this at home! Listen girls, the glans is basically mucous membrane—it's incredibly sensitive and vulnerable. Please, I'm begging you, stop sharing advice like this. You definitely shouldn't be recommending that some guy just pours hydrogen on himself at home!!!
My advice? Just go see a doctor tomorrow and have them take a look. Don't mess around with stuff like this!
dustycanyon6 said:Thanks for the corrections and the more precise info. I actually learned something new here. 😉 Just a heads up, my comments about how the broken-down parts of aspartame work are pretty amateurish... especially the stuff regarding phenylketonuria, which is mostly based on assumptions and guesswork. I guess I messed up by presenting the aspartame issue as being solely about phenylalanine... but I did it because of this:
Phenylalanine is an amino acid normally found in the brain. Persons with the genetic disorder, phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolize phenylalanine. This leads to dangerously high levels of phenylalanine in the brain (sometimes lethal). It has been shown that ingesting aspartame, especially along with carbohydrates can lead to excess levels of phenylalanine in the brain even in persons who do not have PKU. This is not just a theory, as many people who have eaten large amounts of aspartame over a long period of time and do not have PKU have been shown to have excessive levels of phenylalanine in the blood. Excessive levels of phenylalanine in the brain can cause serotonin levels to decrease, leading to emotional disorders such as depression. It was shown in human testing that phenylalanine levels of the blood were increased significantly in human subjects who chronically used aspartame.
So, according to that text, people don't necessarily need to have PKU to be "sensitive" to the phenylalanine in aspartame. I interpreted that as hypersensitivity, almost like an allergy. You know, I wasn't exactly being super sharp when I was writing all that... 😁 But anyway, aren't you still saying that people's phenylalanine levels spike after chronic aspartame consumption?
Any extra info is welcome—where have you been hiding all this? 🙂
I'll try to dig up more if I find anything else...
Exactly, we haven't been tested to see if phenylalanine actually bothers us—like, whether we're allergic or just hypersensitive to it...
I really have to weigh in on this, I just can't help myself...
Anyone with even a basic grasp of biochemistry or immunology would be absolutely floored by these vague conclusions...
A single amino acid simply cannot be an allergen based on its structure and form! So there’s no way you can become sensitized or develop antibodies against one specific amino acid.... I don't even feel like explaining why but based on this, it's pretty clear you don't really know what you're talking about; you're using terms incorrectly and clearly don't understand what they mean...
PKU isn't about some kind of hypersensitivity to anything; it's a metabolic disorder (not an allergic hypersensitivity!!!) caused by a missing enzyme responsible for breaking down the amino acid phenylalanine, which leads to it building up in the system!
dustycanyon6 says: Hey, please tell me—do you actually know if you have phenylketonuria or not? (You don't, but hey—I figured I should start with a sharp question 😉 hope you don't mind). I actually asked my doctor if I was tested for it as a baby, and he said no (well, he doesn't really know anything about it—he just knows for sure I wasn't tested). In many parts of the US, that testing is mandatory! But here, people don't even seem to know what phenylalanine or phenylketonuria is...
You're misinformed!
Phenylketonuria shows up during the first few months of life! It's a really serious condition with permanent consequences, which is why mandatory newborn screening is standard almost everywhere in the world! There's no need to worry about having phenylketonuria!
In the US, it's mandatory to test all newborns for phenylketonuria and hypothyroidism (that thyroid hormone deficiency). I mean, you shouldn't be living in the dark!...
Thomas Edwards82 says: Whenever I feel off like that, and I start burping like crazy, I check the label on whatever I just ate—and sure enough, there’s good old phenylalanine right there.
Phenylalanine is an ESSENTIAL AMINO ACID!!! I mean, you probably know what amino acids are, what they do, and what "essential" actually means... Extra phenylalanine is only harmful to people with phenylketonuria (meaning an excess!, since it's still an essential amino acid for them too)—those who lack the specific enzyme needed to break down the extra stuff. In the amounts added to food products, it isn't harmful to everyone else because it won't hit the saturation point for that enzymatic system! The label lists phenylalanine just to warn anyone living with phenylketonuria. It isn't some mysterious warning about some incredibly dangerous substance!
P.S. This is the first time I've ever heard of someone getting burps from phenylalanine! 🙄
Did you know all those symptoms and signs could actually be manifestations of a whole bunch of different conditions and illnesses!!!??...Aspartame, I think... 🙄
Seriously, don't go trying to diagnose yourself or prescribe your own treatment. Based on how you're thinking and jumping to conclusions, that's definitely not in your best interest!
Btw: I can't even look at Coca-Cola or any of that junk, let alone drink it... And artificial sweeteners? Good grief...
It never even crossed my mind that I might have poisoned myself with aspartame, man, I feel so clueless...😁