busybee fluffy rambles

So, in the past, the “Simply Cheetos” brand of Cheetos didn’t use monosodium glutamate in it, so it was a safe thing for me to eat.

Today when buying lunch at the grocery store, I saw that they had the Flamin' Hot Simply Cheetos, so I bought a bag, and did a cursory glance of the ingredients list and didn’t see MSG on them. Then I had a bunch with dinner, and noticed a rather strong umami flavor (but not the same one that I normally associate with MSG), and paid it no mind.

Later in the evening I started having a really bad bowel reaction to something and started looking at the ingredients listings of everything I ate today to see what it could be, and that’s when I noticed MSG on the Cheetos label.

However, I don’t think it was the Cheetos' MSG that did this! In fact I think I might actually no longer be MSG-sensitive. And looking back, I don’t think I’ve had an MSG reaction ever since I did the ketamine treatments in March (even though I’ve knowingly had MSG a few times since then). There have been a whole lot of unexpected neurological changes that did happen from the ketamine infusions; in particular, ever since those treatments, caffeine doesn’t give me a massive panic attack when I have as little as half of an espresso (I can now tolerate a large Mountain Dew with just a slightly elevated heart rate!), and sucralose doesn’t give me a headache anymore either, and alcohol doesn’t make my pain flare up either.

All of those food sensitivities are highly co-occurrent with people with fibromyalgia, which was the main thing I was trying to treat with ketamine. While the chronic pain and fatigue symptoms haven’t gone away (and those were the main things I was trying to treat!) it’s possible that ketamine at least did have some beneficial effect.

I’m still not going to rush out and like. Consume all the MSG, just as I don’t rush out and consume all the sucralose/Stevia/etc. either and still prefer decaffeinated beverages for a bunch of reasons (although it’s nice being able to self-medicate my ADHD again!) and still limit my alcohol consumption, but maybe I don’t need to worry about those causing unexpected problems anymore.

Anyway. All this is to say that I still absolutely believe that MSG sensitivity is a thing (based on my prior experiences) but also it might be possible to get away from it! I’m not sure undergoing expensive ketamine treatments is worth it for this effect alone, but it might be a nice side-effect for folks who are seeking it for other reasons.