Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal

palegray.net writes "CNN is running an article on the notorious effects of caffeine withdrawal, a problem that seems to be affecting an increasing number of people. Citing numerous reasons why people might need to cut back on their caffeine intake (pregnancy, pre-surgery requirements, etc), the story notes a significant number of people who are simply unable to quit. I drink around eight cups of coffee a day, along with a soda or two, and I definitely suffer from nasty withdrawal symptoms without my fix."

Bah

[Lord Grey]

I drink around eight cups of coffee a day, along with a soda or two, and I definitely suffer from nasty withdrawal symptoms without my fix.

You, sir, are a member of the Caffeine Underacheivers Club of the World. Until you can regularly consume an average of three or four pots of coffee in day (30 to 40 cups) without experiencing caffeine intoxication [wikipedia.org], you have no idea what how "nasty" withdrawal can get.

I'm at that point, I admit it. Withdrawal, for me, starts after about eight hours without caffeine. I get a serious headache, quickly followed by nausea and a general flu-like feeling. Left unattended, it's damn-near incapacitating. Fortunately, a single cup of coffee vanquishes all symptoms within 30 minutes.

Anyway, is this caffeine withdrawal stuff really news to anyone? Anyone?

I'm an addict, and I like it.

[XxtraLarGe]

I have tried quitting before, and it just seems to kill my brain, both with pain and sluggishness. I'm not exactly sure why I tried to quit, because I enjoy coffee quite a bit. Today I've had 3 cups of coffee and a Starbucks Double Shot. I still have over half the work day to do, and will probably have a couple more cups of coffee & another double shot at the end of the day to keep me awake on the road. Tonight is date night with my wife, so we'll probably go to the local cafe and have a mocha after dinner.

How you get hooked

[Thelasko]

While I was in college I became addicted to caffeine. I would wake up tired, and have a cup of coffee, later in the day I would feel worn down and drink a "soda." In the evening I would have another cup of coffee so I could study without falling asleep. This put me in a downward spiral that just kept getting worse and worse.

I discovered that, even though I slept at night, I wouldn't get any rest. I would wake up just as tired as when I went to bed. There was a simple reason for this, that evening cup of coffee. If you want to cut back on your caffeine intake, I have one piece of advice:

Don't drink any caffeine for at least four hours before bedtime

Re:Bah

[Red Flayer]

You, sir, are a member of the Caffeine Underacheivers Club of the World. Until you can regularly consume an average of three or four pots of coffee in day (30 to 40 cups) without experiencing caffeine intoxication, you have no idea what how "nasty" withdrawal can get.

So you're not experiencing caffeine intoxication... good for you. Have you had to expel kidney stones yet? How about the other side effects from caffeine poisoning? Have you had your renal function tested? How's the chronic diarrhea going?

I'm a caffeine addict too, but I've cut down to 1d4 + 3 cups per day. I've had kidney stones and luckily ultrasound treatment broke them up so I didn't have to pass them whole. You're damaging your body, please cut down.

Re:Why would anyone quit?

[Colonel Korn]

well, to make caffeine useful again, for example.
i dring two cups of tea a day at most (no coffee at all because i don't like the taste) and when i really need a push, a cup of coffee or gyokuro is absolutely sufficient to awake me.

Exactly. I used to consume 6-10 cups of coffee worth of caffeine a day, and that was just to get me to normal. Now I have 0 caffeine on a typical day and I can very, very easily pull an all nighter on 1-2 cups. Also, I feel better when I wake up and go to sleep than I used to.

There's no benefit at all to caffeine addiction.

Re:Well... since it's a drug

[quantumghost]

Already exists. It's used in pediatrics for bradycardia (slow heart rate). http://www.drugs.com/ppa/caffeine.html [drugs.com]

Re:Been there

[Hatta]

You're seriously consuming a couple liters of bottled water daily? What's wrong with tap water? Hell with that kind of money, you could buy yourself a really nice filter that would pay for itself after a few months. $2 a day adds up, and bottled water is just about the dumbest thing you could spend it on.

Re:Eight Cups?!?

[mahlerfan999]

A cup on a coffee pot is 5 ounces, sometimes 6 but usually 5.

Re:Been there

[TrevorB]

I did exactly the same thing 13 years ago.. Nursing a 4L/day Cola habit and going to bed vibrating from the buzz, I decided it just wasn't healthy, that I couldn't do moderation and decided to go cold turkey.

I still drink plenty of pop though... Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi is my friend.

By Far...

[eggy78]

the most painful, grueling thing I've ever done, and from what I can tell, compared to other /. residents, I didn't even drink that much. It was basically a two-week debilitating, disorienting migraine followed by rapid weight-loss (although the weight-loss was a pretty welcome development, to be honest). The nausea and pain were so bad I didn't even realize I was losing weight, and all of my friends thought I was sick or dying because I looked so pale and couldn't function. Now I have a cup of tea once a week or so and can't really tell much of a difference between my performance while drinking caffeine and with no caffeine, once I got over the first few weeks.

Re:Am I the only one?

[TrevorB]

Nope, you're not alone. There's many of us who've gone on the wagon to be free from the stuff.

Re:Eight Cups?!?

[mahlerfan999]

Get some exercise. Take multivitamins and get a good nights sleep.

In particular B vitamins can really improve your energy levels, especially B12.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Eight Cups?!?

[StaticEngine]

Get some exercise. Run a couple of miles every other day, or bike regularly.

Don't code right up to the point where you go to bed. Do something different to take your mind off code for at least 30 minutes, then go to bed. Read a book. Watch a show. Clean the kitchen. Anything.

You'll find that you're tired on a regular schedule, and your mind will be less code-racy.

Ibuprofen not Tylenol or acetaminophen

[ryanchappell]

Tylenol is rougher on the liver than Ibuprofen. This is important because of all the alcohol users here.

Re:Bah

[Chyeld]

It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion.

It is caffeine alone that sets my mind in motion.
It is through beans of java that thoughts acquire speed,
that hands acquire shakes, that shakes become a warning...
I am...IN CONTROL...OF MY ADDICTION!

From the Minicon Graffiti Wall, 1989

Re:Eight Cups?!?

[UnHolier than ever]

In most of continental Europe, if you ask for a cup of coffee you get a watered down expresso, and it comes in a cup that is approximately the size of the "cup" you see on your pot. Drip coffee is almost unknown here and viewed with universal disgust. Can't figure out why; I prefer to have a longer drip coffee than to have a expresso and add so much sugar to it that it barely tastes coffee like many do.

Of course, when given the choice of what size they use to define "cup", manufacturers will choose the one that allows them to claim a higher number, even though no one uses a coffee pot for expressos.

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[james.m.henderson]

I find that the best way to get away from caffeine addiction is to cut back. If you halve your intake every day, then you likely won't experience any withdrawal symptoms, but will have a logarithmic recovery time. Another option is to consume half a cup (or less) of coffee when you start to feel withdrawal. It doesn't take much caffeine to clear up the effects.

Re:Try Tylenol (Acetaminophen) for 3 days

[timbck2]

No, Tylenol does not contain caffeine. You're probably thinking of Excedrin, which is aspirin/acetaminophen/caffeine.

Re:Bah

[Raffaello]

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] suggests why:
A 2006 study by Dr Ahmed El-Sohemy at the University of Toronto discovered a link between a gene effecting caffeine metabolism and the effects of coffee on health. [96] [97] Some people have a gene to metabolize caffeine more slowly, and for them drinking large quantities of coffee was found to increase the risk of myocardial infarction. [a.k.a. heart attack] For rapid metabolizers, however, coffee seemed to have a preventative effect. Slow and fast metabolizers are comparably common in the general population, and this has been blamed for the wide variation in studies of the health effects of caffeine.

other symptoms

[The Electric Snark]

Headaches and flu-like symptoms are merely the more common and benign aspects of withdrawal. In some cases (speaking from personal experience here), withdrawal symptoms can include paresthesia, akin to Bell's palsy, and vastly lowered heart rate (on the order of 20 bpm). These symptoms can appear weeks after the initial curtailment of caffeine ingestion.

Re:Eight Cups?!?

[maxume]

My coffee maker doesn't say cup, it says servings. I think this is pretty common, and then people call them cups instead of servings.

Re:Bah

[geekoid]

There is no hangover with marijuana , and marijuana has been studied extensively, and continues to be studied.

I'm not taking the stance one is safer then the other, only that the poster is correct on that specific issue.

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[celery stalk]

Another point that irritates me: you said you took "aspirin"; I doubt it.

What makes you doubt the fact he took aspirin, and go into a rant about the different OTC pain medications available? If I tell someone I took aspirin, then I mean that I took Bayer aspirin, or a cheaper generic. When I'm experiencing caffeine withdrawal symptoms on the weekends, I take an aspirin/acetaminophen/caffeine pill (Excedrin Extra Strength), and I'll tell folks I took an Excedrin if it comes up in conversation. I know damn well that it has caffeine, which in combination with the pain meds, will do wonders for the symptoms.

If I'm trying to quit caffeine cold turkey, I'm going to be taking aspirin and acetaminophen, I'll tell folks I took Tylenol and aspirin, and that'll be the truth. Just because some idiots call a fork a spoon, doesn't mean "spoon" no longer actually means "spoon".

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Oscar Wilde

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[gnick]

Water is tougher to drink quickly in large quantities than coffee/soda for somebody who's used to the caffeine. Same with beer for somebody who's used to the alcohol. Caffeine & alcohol are diuretics and tend to move through the system more quickly than water.

Re:Bah

[not already in use]

Some people have a gene to...

If only every study came with this caveat because by and large, genetics determine how and to what extent anything will affect you.

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[gnick]

You're mostly right there. If a pain-killer is marketed as a 'headache' drug, it's probably got caffeine. Several times over if it's marketed as a 'migraine' drug, as caffeine is an effective vasoconstrictor and combats the vasal dilation that causes most migraines. But if you're just taking aspirin, it's probably just aspirin and possibly a buffer.

I don't usually buy 'Advil' or 'Bayer'. I buy 'ibuprofen' or 'aspirin'. I have little need for a brand name attachment to the drug I'm after. (We do however buy Tylenol - I've never seen a bottle simply labeled "acetaminophen".) It sounds like a peeve of yours and it may be a common mis-speak (I've never knowingly run into it, but it could be). But when somebody tells me they take aspirin, I assume that they're taking aspirin. If they're taking something else, it's usually a "pain-killer" or just "I took something".

Switching to half-decaf

[billstewart]

Decaffeinated coffees have finally gotten to taste pretty good over the last couple of decades; it's much better than the evil days of powdered Sanka. Rather than cutting off cold-turkey, you can start brewing your coffee with half decaf, and gradually decreasing the amount of real stuff.

I've done cold turkey on occasion - I'd been working on a death-march programming project, and by a couple of days before we had to ship our demo, I'd reached the point that coffee wasn't making me more awake, it was just making me more jittery, so I quit. Bad headaches for two weeks - it was a couple of years before I started caffeine again. Normally if I'm doing too much caffeine I'll cut back gradually.

Unfortunately, I picked up a tea habit a couple of years ago, and decaffeinating tea takes out most of the tea flavor. Herbal teas are fine some of the time, but black tea tastes good and gives me a nicer buzz than coffee because it's a somewhat different mix of alkaloids.

Re:Bah

[plague3106]

Caffeine reduces the absorption of calcium.

Technically true... but not enough to cause problems. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12204390 [nih.gov]

It's also a diuretic.

Also technically true... but unless you're taking it in pill form, the amount water in which the caffeine is dissolved is more than the amount it will cause you to lose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/nutrition/04real.html [nytimes.com]

So your claims that caffeine causes kidney stones are totally unfounded.

Cold turkey is overkill

[1,$d]

I'm in the gene group that gets a headache when I go 24+ hours without caffeine.

But I can painlessly quit whenever I feel like it. I use a modified binary exponential backoff algorithm. For example, if I'm drinking 1 cup a day:

• Take it down to .75 dose: Drink less than a full cup for 1-2 days.
• Then drink a half cup for 2-3 days.
• Then drink half that, == a soda or half a tea for 2-3 days.
• Then don't drink any.

Backing the dosage off slowly completely avoids headaches. For me. YMMV, but give it a shot. If you usually drink more, you might want to take a few more days (2 days per binary step).

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[microTodd]

Sometimes its labeled "Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever"

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10324473 [walmart.com]

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[compro01]

Acetaminophen seems to be a North America thing (it's the United States Adopted Name and is also used in Canada and probably Mexico). It's otherwise known as Paracetamol (the International Nonproprietary Name) in most of the rest of the world.

Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day

[severoon]

It's generally not great to get too much water. Your body can't use large quantities of water by itself, it has to be balanced with electrolytes and other stuff to be of any use. Drink too much water, and you start diluting down the electrolytes that keep your muscles working. You're prone to muscle cramps and other annoying things from overhydration.

Because of bottled water going big corporate in the 90s, in the US at least, many people got brainwashed by Coke, Pepsi, and other water distributors that humans need a ridiculous amount of water everyday...pair that up with the way our govt works vis-a-vis lobby groups, and you had the govt endorsing this nonsense. Drink 8 12oz glasses of water everyday! they said. Hook a garden hose supplied with Dasani up to your mouth and don't turn it off until it starts coming out the other end! Yeeeeaaa.

But if you've ever had a bout of continuous vomiting or diarrhea and tried to stay hydrated with just water, you have firsthand experience that that approach only works for a short while. Many people smart enough to try to stay hydrated after getting food poisoning or some other condition with these symptoms show up in ERs saying, But I don't understand—I was drinking tons of water to stay hydrated!, after they're diagnosed with dehydration. And what is the remedy? An IV of saline, not water. What would have kept them out of the ER? Pedialyte or some other oral rehydration solution...even flat 7-Up is better than water.