Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal 700
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re:Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to both of you I am a complete lightweight, but I still experience headaches, depression, etc, when I go without.
I'm definitely going with "Not news." Caffeine is a drug, we're addicted.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
Compared to both of you I am a complete lightweight
I may be the lightest lightweight I know. I average 24 oz. of coffee and two cans of soda a day. If I have more than that I get pretty dysfunctional--irritable, nervous, sleepless. If I quit, I have one day of headaches and nausea followed by many days of sluggishness and cravings. I can't say how many days, since I always fall off the wagon.
I find that I really can't write code without caffeine anymore. Maybe I never could. It makes me sad to think that I need a stimulant to do my job, but there it is...
I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be addicted to the high, but I couldn't stand the lows - migraine-like headache for hours (sensitivity to light, sound, etc.). I tried taking more caffeine to keep the lows away, but that ended the same - once I crashed, I got a migraine-like headache that wouldn't go away until I got a good-nights sleep. The worst part was, I would crash DURING THE WORKDAY, so my work performance was actually suffering.
Once I understood that the migraines were from withdrawal, I decided to quit cold-turkey - nothing but aspirin and lots of water. I took a long weekend over July 4th: the first day was pure anguish and pain, and the second day was worse. But the third day, I could function, and I was feeling pretty good by the fourth day when I went back to work.
After a week, I felt better than I had for years, and I was surprised to find I didn't have the cravings anymore. I also had more get-up-and-go in the mornings than I ever did on caffeine. And YES, I could code just as well without the boost.
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too, but I would recommend taking a long weekend away from the world.
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Insightful)
If you replace the word "caffeine" in your entire post with "sugar" or "sweets" that would accurately describe me. Unfortunately I have fallen off the wagon and am seriously addicted to it again. Time to go cold turkey as the weight is starting to creep back up.
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, gee, I drink 8 cups of strong coffee per day and 2 huge servings of soft drinks. Unbelievably, after several years of doing this, I have problems!
Uhh, yea, dumb-dumb. At what point in your life did you think it was a good idea to drink that fourth cup of coffee in the same day, much less four more? I think this condition is known as: epic brainpower fail.
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
you drink water ??? why ? It'll wash the caffeine away ! stop it!!! dihydrogen oxide is _DANGEROUS_ man !!!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
My body seriously does not like being hydrated. If I drink a pint or more of water, I will pee it out. I've given up caffeine for lent and I only drink water in those quantities at the office when I'm completely sober. I don't think I have excessive sugar intake so I can't blame it on any form of diuretics in my system.
On another note, I generally hit the caffeine hard immediately after easter. I never do 8 cups a day, but I immediately revert to my usual 4 cups. Then again, if my withdrawal sucked that muc
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too.
I was once addicted to willpower. Then I went cold turkey and caved in to every craving, and now I feel much better.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
Oscar Wilde
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
I was once addicted to willpower.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance.
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
I was once addicted to willpower.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance.
I'm addicted to placebos.
I've thought about quitting, but it wouldn't make a difference.
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too.
I was once addicted to willpower. Then I went cold turkey and caved in to every craving, and now I feel much better.
Lucky you. I was addicted to cold turkey, and since my loved one has started roasting it for dinner my life took a turn for the worse.
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Interesting)
Come to the East End mate.... (Score:4, Interesting)
You want to come to the East End of London, me old china, and I'll show you tea that isn't weak! Proper builders brews.
I'm telling you, you could stand a spoon in some of the brews you get down the proper caffs. Proper traditional places with a big tea pot always on the go, they pour you a couple of inches from that into a mug and then top up the other 2/3 of the mug with hot water. I swear the tea in those big tea pots is some sort of nuclear brew that's been stewing in there since the days the Cutty Sark used to sail up the Thames, they just top it up with a couple more spoonfuls of leaf tea every Christmas and it gets heavier and heavier and more and more evil.
My first job was in a hospital with a couple of retired Navy guys, they'd been through the war, I was the youngest so I was "the boy" and any time we had a problem I was sent to make a pot of tea so we could stand there with our mugs and suck our teeth and sip our tea and work out how to get the box through the door or whatever. Taught me how to make proper strong brews those lads did.
I think your green tea is the happy asian gentle stuff*, nothing wrong with it but not for yer average British builder, you know... you'd get laughed off a site if you tried bringing that along...
cheers though! Nothing like a lovely cup of tea eh? (or 10 or so).
*no disrespect to asian builders, I bet if you're on a building site in Singapore or Tokyo or wherever the lads there can probably brew green tea to some frightening level of intensity too...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
add to this story with some mild psychosis, paranoid feelings, general anxiety and heart burn and you have my experience. Maybe with some potassium deficiencies too.
I just can't process the stuff. The initial high is nice, but the build-up over time has such huge negative effects that I'm just a wreck after a few weeks. The heart burn really is the signal that the other symptoms are not far behind.
Usually it starts with nightmares! Yes, all this and more, caused by caffeine.
Go cold turkey, and a week later,
Switching to half-decaf (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you think he didn't take aspirin? It's a perfectly reasonable drug to take for a headache. There's a big jar in my medicine cabinet, right next to the ibuprofen...
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:4, Informative)
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".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Aspirin vs. Acetaminophen vs. Combo pills (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming people don't know what they're taking shows you as a noob. Yes, there are pain remedies out there other than aspirin (ASA for you non-US folks), and some of them like Excedrin contain caffeine. But many of us grew up with old-fashioned aspirin, and when we want it we buy bottles that say "Aspirin" on them; if we mean Acetaminophen we'd probably say Tylenol. It's particularly important to people who have high blood pressure because aspirin helps reduce risk of strokes and heart attacks (and low-d
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally In college I realized that soda and energy drinks were causing my massive headaches. I switched my default soda
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
The Spice extends life. The Spice expands consciousness. The Spice is vital to space travel. The Spacing Guild and its navigators, who the Spice has mutated over 4000 years, use the orange Spice gas, which gives them the ability to fold space.
Somebody really was drinking too much coffee when they wrote that shit.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think it was COFFEE he was ingesting.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
From the Minicon Graffiti Wall, 1989
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
We need prohibition! War on caffeine, Columbian coffee beans clearly constitute an Axis of Withdrawal Symptoms!
We need to construct a massive wall, in the sea, between us and Mexico to stop these evil coffee lords and their satanic beans from getting in to the US!
God Bless America!
Maintenance Dose (Score:5, Insightful)
There is the concept of "maintenance dose" in addiction. I find that just one soda, small cup of coffee / Nescafe, or one No-Doz are enough to forestall the headaches. One or two days of this "maintenence dose" and I can go cold turkey.
Really, cut down on the sodas. The coffee is fine, but as soon as I started working at a place without free sodas, I lost ten pounds and my blood sugar went down 20 points.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to give up caffeine. Long story short, I fell while working on a roof and hit my chest hard on a pile of bricks. Most likely damaged my pericardium. [wikipedia.org]
While it healed up, anything that made my heart beat harder made the pain worse. So that meant caffeine - all of it - had to go.
Week long headache. A whopper too, right in the temples. Miserable. But once it's gone, it's gone for good. You can beat it if you have to.
Some advice if you're willing to try. Avoid Excederin. It's a caffeine pill mostly - that's why it cures headaches. It gives you another fix and postpones the withdraw another 8-12 hours. Then you need another one. Avoid chocolate. Read labels. And avoid yerba mate - it has caffeine. If you're going to do it, the only way to do it is cold turkey, 100%. Even the slightest sprinkle of caffeine will halt ALL your progress and you'll have to start from scratch again. And that means another week's worth of headaches.
Anyways, after I healed up I never went back. I am a decaffeinated programmer. Rarest of the rare. It feels great, too. No nervousness, no sweats, my nails look great. And I sleep better than I ever have. That's one of the reasons computer types stay up late - they have to come down off the caffeine before they can sleep.
Once it's out of your life and you have that reference to make a comparison from, you realize just how big of a drug caffeine actually is. It's messing with you more than you probably think it is.
Re:Bah (Score:4, Interesting)
I had to cut back for surgery awhile back and I found that simply mixing a little bit of regular coffee in with decaf worked like a charm. It didn't even need to be half and half, even just one part caffeinated in four was sufficient to stave off the headaches and malaise.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
I had to cut back for surgery awhile back and I found that simply mixing a little bit of regular coffee in with decaf worked like a charm. It didn't even need to be half and half, even just one part caffeinated in four was sufficient to stave off the headaches and malaise.
I just went and switched to scotch.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
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:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. Mod parent up. I went to see a neurologist a few years ago and she was visibly horrified when I told her I drank about 6 cups of coffee a day.
I tried quitting altogether, but in the end I just cut back to 2-3 cups of black tea per day. It seems to have a more gradual, "extended release" effect that I prefer anyway. I'll also have half a cup of diet cola on the days that I go running.
Multiple pots of coffee a day? Especially on a regular basis? That's pretty much committing suicide in slow motion.
If you have trouble with low energy, try getting some cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis. Your body will work better as a result too, instead of crashing when the caffeine wears off. For me, getting my (giant) tonsils removed helped as well, because it meant I slept much better at night.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
When they came for the smokers,
I sat drinking my coffee and watched.
When they came for my coffee,
yada yada yada.
---
Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit cocaine.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Funny)
They just aren't drinking enough alcohol to break up the stones.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
Doctors are horrified of everything you do.
Everything will kill you, given enough time. If your neurologist was freaked out about 6 cups of coffee, then you need to stop using doctors fresh out of med school, or probably still in school that haven't been in the real world long enough to know that all the shit they were told in school is generally made out to be a lot worse than it really is.
I am not a doctor, but my wife is. She almost spit her coffee out as she laughed at your neurologist comment.
If you continue to listen to your scare mongering neurologist, you'll end up dead from a heart attack because she will make sure your brain and nervous system are fine, but in the process she'll destroy your heart, liver, kidneys, and most of the rest of your body with medication or stupidity or both.
If you think drinking that much coffee is committing suicide, then you should go talk to some rheumatoidologist's and see how bad your typing is killing you.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a caffeine addict too, but I've cut down to 1d4 + 3 cups per day.
Let's go ahead and talk about that *other* addiction...
Re:Bah (Score:4, Funny)
I just wondered if he rolled the d4 in the morning, or after the 3rd cup to figure out how many he got to drink that day.
--
JimFive
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe he just made a typo and really meant 1e4 + 3 cups per day. That'd be a lot :-)
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
No really, in the AM I roll a 4-sided die and add three to it. That is my limit on coffee for the day.
If it's a weekday, I then roll d% to find out if I'm going to work, and at what time. Since I have 20 vacation days, and there are approximately 250 workdays in the year, I have an 8% chance of calling out for the day. If I roll 09-12, I go in late. If I roll 96-00, then I work overtime.
Once I get to work, I look at my email inbox. I roll a d6 surreptitiously. If I roll a 1, I address the email. If I roll a 2-5, I pass it on to a team member offshore. If I roll a 6, I accidentally the mail, then log into the mail server and edit the log files to remove all traces of the offending mail. Sometimes this takes longer than dealing with the email, but it's more fun in the long run.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit, caffeine has been much more thoroughly studied than marijuana has. Suggesting that because of this that you can state that the side effects are smaller is utter bullshit.
It is definitely possible that you are correct, but without the data, it's hardly a fair statement to make. A lot of things like the link to psychosis aren't easy to study and take a long time to prove or disprove. It gets even more fuzzy when you start to consider the other things that get put into the pot and the effects of varying strengths out there.
Sure it's possible that marijuana is safer, but you can't state that without somebody having done research on it to a similar extent.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Caffeine should be regulated because your a weak willed moron? Piss off.
I think we should ban soda too... because that's bad for you as well, and it would solve your delima. Actually, lets just ban fast food, because that's bad for you too.
Grow up and take responsiblity for yourself, and don't tell others what they should be doing with their kids.
Re:Caffeine is a drug that should be regulated. (Score:5, Insightful)
By that logic, why do we have laws against cocaine and heroin?
Good question.
Ahhhhhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ahhhhhhh (Score:4, Funny)
I'm an addict, and I like it. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm an addict, and I like it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not exactly sure why I tried to quit
another double shot at the end of the day to keep me awake on the road
Maybe you tried to quit because you are chronically sleep deprived due to your caffeine intake? I think I remember reading that caffeine can only fight off four hours of sleep deprivation, after that a different neurochemical kicks in that caffeine doesn't effect. So if you are able to sleep with this much caffeine in your system, you are at least four hours behind on sleep, every single day; even if you got eight hours last night, it doesn't make up for the four hour debt you have built up.
Caffeine is really only useful if you only take it when you need it. Drinking so much everyday that you use up the four hours it gives you just puts you right back in the same boat as everyone else. When you quit that sleep debt hits you like a freight train, combined with the effects of withdrawal (headache and nausea) it is truly miserable. But if you wean yourself off of it slowly and catch up on your missed sleep the dull sleepy feeling will go away, and you could save the $7 a day you spend at Starbucks for something more useful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 love this statement. I hear it all the time.. They say the enjoy coffee a lot yet drink utter swill. ANYTHING from starbucks is raging crap. You need to get some good FRESH coffee roasted and them make it yourself. You will never be able to drink the toilet water they sell at Starbucks or other places that sell what they call coffee. Start with a simple one... a J
Eight Cups?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously dude, slow down. My wife used to drink about four Starbucks espresso drinks a day, and she noticed she was visibly trembling. Her doctors told her her heartbeat was erratic and racing, so she cut down to one or two coffee drinks a day. She's much more normal now.
The "geek chic" lifestyle, massive amounts of caffiene and Red Bulls, pulling all nighters to punch out code, scarfing down whole pizzas and gaming until all hours, it's not really good for you. Moderate. Get some exercise. Take multivitamins and get a good nights sleep. You can actually be as productive with healthy living and one cup of coffee as you are in stimulant and sugar overload, and you won't be burning the candle at both ends.
Plus, you really won't have to worry about withdrawal when you're stuck on an island with no WiFi, no coffee, but plenty of hot native girls.
Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Plus, you really won't have to worry about withdrawal when you're stuck on an island with no WiFi, no coffee, but plenty of hot native girls.
Actually, in that case I'd say that you DO need to worry about withdrawal, unless you want to knock up the hot native girls or brought birth control ;)
Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped using caffeine because of the shakes, mood swings, and other nasty side effects of massive amounts of caffeine but I still don't sleep. I think that is a geek trait more than a geek lifestyle choice. Who can sleep when you have visions of code running through your head. It was all I could do to keep myself in bed for three hours last night and even then I wake up about every half hour.
Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Addicted to code. (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't work. I'm addicted to code.
What's worse is if I've been doing math. That gives me really horrible dreams of numbers trying to combine and interact in different ways. I always dream as if I can find some new better way they should work but of course I never can get a better result. Ick. At least with the code my brain actually can find better patterns while I sleep.
What's weird is when you code without fully waking up. You can accomplish some amazing things but trying to understand the code you've written is all but impossible sometimes. When I was working more with AI I'd come up with some pretty good mental leaps and have no memory of having woke in the night much less having coded anything and trying to untangle the code to see how it worked was a total no-go because it just didn't seem like it should work at all.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
[...] Take multivitamins [...]
Or just prepare your food yourself instead of warming up canned or frozen crap. It does not take a radical change of diet to live relatively healthy. Using fresh ingredients, especially fruit and vegetables, and skipping on all the various additives in industrial food goes a long way in fending off all kinds of illnesses and problems. Plus with a bit of practise it tastes way better than anything you could buy.
Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand how that isn't false advertising.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, when given the choice of what size they use to define "cup", manufacturers will choose the o
My worst caffeine withdrawl (Score:5, Interesting)
I once visited a friend for a week and they didn't have any coffee. I wasn't too bothered at first as there was plenty of booze but I woke up after two days with a slight hangover (not that much booze the night before) and a pounding migraine. I had no energy and double vision, the migraine got so bad I was sick.
I thought a coffee would help me feel a little better so I dragged myself to the store round the corner and bought some. As soon as I'd drunk a small cup of coffee my migraine started to disappear and I could see straight again.
I was on around ten triple strength cups a day which would be about three grammes of caffeine. I've since cut down to three cups a day!
Been there (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to consume a couple liters of caffeinated beverages daily. 4 or 5 years ago my wife and I decided to switch completely to bottled water. There weren't really any health reasons to our decision - we just wanted to try it. I remember having headaches for a few days, and feeling lethargic, but the withdrawal wasn't too bad.
We still primarily drink bottled water, but when eating out I'll drink a tea or soft drink. The nice thing is that if I have extra work to do, or am driving on a long trip, I can drink a bottle of pop and it actually is a stimulant for me, as opposed to something my body relies on just to maintain the status quo.
Re:Been there (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that you have switched to bottled water and gotten used to it, it is time to consider non-bottled water... either out of a Brita filter or straight out of the tap. Do you live in a place where this is possible? For long drives that you mention I just use a refillable, insulated bicycling water bottle or one of those glass lined aluminum thingies. I drink straight out of the tap most of the time, or out of the water dispenser on the fridge the rest of the time. But I don't live in Malawi or any other backwoods place with unsafe water.
Re:Been there (Score:5, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people spend their spare $$ on fizzy drinks, some on coffee, I don't see anything wrong with doing something similar for water.
I drink distilled/RO water because I prefer the taste to tap water. Clean.
Some cheap brands or filtering/distilling equipment leave too much acetone behind, so I don't like those as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you prefer the taste of tap water from other areas?
Which is pretty much all bottled water is.
I don't care that you spend your money on that, but you should really be aware of what you are buying.
In the US you can have your water tested for free. If it doesn't taste good, I would suggest you do that.
There are a lot of good filtration systems for the home.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
I guess I'm lucky. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am NOT addicted! (Score:5, Funny)
I can quit whenever I want!!!!
Re:I am NOT addicted! (Score:5, Funny)
Serious Withdrawal (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped drinking caffeine in high school when the perma-shakes set in. I was having somewhere near the equivalent of 30-40 cups over the course of a 19-20 hour day and getting about 4 hours of sleep in order to keep full time school, full time job, and a very active social life all going.
The shakes quit after about 3 days. The headache after about 2 weeks. And somewhere about 2 years later I no longer felt permanently exhausted.
The nice thing now is that I find I can stay awake as long as I need to as long as I don't have high-sugar foods or have any alcohol. I just catch up the next day with little or no problem. I can't imagine going back to caffeine. As a computer-geek, I think it would be hard to do it just in moderation. Everyone else around me has the perpetual can of Coke next to their mouse.
Whatdoyoumeancaffineisaddictive? (Score:5, Funny)
If caffine is a drug, my office is the largest opium den this side of the mississippi...
Re:Whatdoyoumeancaffineisaddictive? (Score:5, Funny)
Caffeine addiction is the only justification for drinking office coffee.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Caffeine addiction is the only justification for drinking office coffee.
Who doesn't like lukewarm, brown-tinged water?
How you get hooked (Score:5, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How you get hooked (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How you get hooked (Score:5, Interesting)
The minimum amount of exercise was, interestingly enough, 4 one minute sprints on an exercise bicycle, all out, as hard as you can go with no holding back. You can take a break after each sprint for a short while to catch your breath. Do this twice a week.
The test subject and controls were from time to time given a glass of glucose water, and the experimenters measured how long it took to clear the sugar from the blood.
The theory was this. The muscles have a ready reserve of energy and resist taking more from the blood unless you deplete some of it. Experiments indicate that the benefits of this "minimum" exercise program last for weeks after ceasing it.
This is not my field and I could not tell you why sugar in the blood is bad for you, or why certain sugars are worse. However, I understand that the Berkley Wellness Letter and Science/Nature are evidence based publications. Anyone not credulous can spend about an afternoon looking these things up, though a library is probably better than the internet because many relevant publications are not free.
Ah caffeine withdrawal... (Score:5, Interesting)
I too have experienced caffeine withdrawal many times. My internist recommended that when I choose not to ingest caffeine anymore, I should start taking 2000 mg of vitamin c daily for about seven days. I have subsequently done this everytime I decide to take a hiatus from caffeine and it has worked wonders - no headaches and no nausea!
I guess I'm one of the few (Score:5, Insightful)
I must be one of the few that just doesn't touch the stuff. I don't even generally like the smell. Never drank it -- coffee that is. And I only drink soda for lack of better fruit juice.
I believe half of /. needs to check themselves into a clinic.
Drugs are bad, m-kay?
No withdrawal for me! (Score:5, Insightful)
During most of the year I have 18-24oz of coffee every morning, and sometimes another 6-8oz or a caffeinated soda/energy drink after lunch. So about 3-6 "cups" a day.
But during Lent I go cold turkey. Just stop on Ash Wednesday. (I give up alcohol at the same time, FWIW.)
The only side effect I ever experience is becoming a zombie from 1p-3p every day for the second week I'm off the stuff. The first week I'm fine. The second week I'm a zombie and completely unproductive for two hours in the afternoon. Weeks three to six I'm fine, though I start earnestly looking forward to resuming my morning ritual by week six. My sleep patterns don't change. My personality doesn't change. I don't experience physical pain.
I really recommend everyone try this. Give up something you love for six weeks. Detach. When you get back together your relationship will be healthier. You will have a new appreciation for what you gave up.
Of course, this requires sacrifice and introspection. Good luck with that, seriously.
Anesthesiologist uses it IV (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an anesthesiologist. I regularly see people who drink 6 cups a day and have to go without food or water before surgery.
Intravenous caffeine is available as a drug and I will give it to patients in a dose of 250-500 mg. to prevent bad withdrawl headaches.
If a heavy coffee drinker has his last coffee at 8pm and goes without until he wakes from surgery 18 hours later he will probably have a withdrawl headache.
Interestingly, IV caffeine is also used to lower the seizure threshold in electroconvulsive therapy for depression. It promotes a longer seizure.
Do it gradually (Score:3, Insightful)
Like everything else cut back slowly. Instead of 8 go 6 for a week, and then push lower and lower, eventually you'll be down to 1-2 cups and home free. I went from drinking all kinds of pop(coke,pepsi) by downgrading to mineral water (yes it sucks) and then abandoning that for actual water. glad I got of that stuff.
Cold Cures Caffeine Cravings (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to have a caffeine addiction from drinking lots of Coke for many years. I got over it by having a cold. For 3-4 days I couldn't stand the taste of Coke, so didn't drink any. And, already being ill, the withdrawal symptoms didn't bother me. By the time I got over the cold, I didn't need caffeine any more. Simples!
LAN parties (Score:4, Interesting)
Then once I decided to just drink water all night. I was able to game til 7am and still feel pretty good. While I have no actual evidence, I think my headaches and drowsiness were caused more by becoming dehydrated than by being tired. What I learned that is I should go with water first if I'm feeling fatigued. I still enjoy a coke once or twice a week, along with a couple cups a tea once or twice a week.. but drinking 80-100oz of water a day normally keeps me feeling good and alert.
Just the word "Addiction" is problematic. (Score:5, Interesting)
I notice that when I hear the word, "Addicted", I feel a slight subterranean urge to start acting.
--That is, to put myself through the drama of addiction. The cravings and the various difficulties. I wonder how much of this is really based on chemical addiction and how much of it is based on behavioral programming.
Coffee and tobacco are interesting. I've played with both. I wanted to try tobacco for a number of reasons and it was pretty cool. "Quitting Smoking" is this buggaboo of a thing in our society, so after I'd been smoking this pipe for several months, (and really quite enjoying it), I said, "Okay. Let's see what this Quitting Smoking thing is all about."
I was a little disappointed. Quitting smoking is pretty easy. It takes seven days for the chemical addiction to be overcome. After that it's entirely a question of behavior and brain chemistry. (Some people are naturally attracted to tobacco because it balances out their neural chemistry. There's a reason why cigarettes are so popular among those with various imbalances. It's self-medication and it helps. A lot. --For these people, I imagine that "Quitting Smoking" is probably much more challenging.)
It's basically like having a mild flu. It gets worse and worse until withdrawal symptoms peek somewhere between day 3 or 4, and then it smooths out. After 7 days are up, you're pretty much in the clear. The difficult part is this: Imagine having the flu, not the worst you've ever had, but pretty uncomfortable. Normally, you'd just tough it out because you have no choice. But with nicotine, you can make the symptoms vanish instantly. Hmmm! --The other part I found really entertaining was seeing the kinds of tricks my rational mind tried to play. As the symptoms progress, your mind will concoct all kinds of logical-seeming arguments for just smoking one more time. Coffee doesn't do that. --Coffee addiction is child's play. Two days, one head-ache, no real cravings to speak of, and you're back to normal. Big deal.
So overall, the whole notion of "Addiction" seems much overblown from my perspective. (Drugs are different for different people; you can't choose your base brain chemistry defaults, --not like behavior programming, which with enough work can be altered.) --Addiction is just a bodily reaction to a substance which you can measure and take into account. Knowing that quitting is just a process with a recognizable cost, I have no fear of using coffee when appropriate, and if I ever go through a period of extreme, prolonged stress, I'd certainly consider using tobacco again. It's really a pretty amazing drug, --though it does make you smell funny and if you smoke the crappy kind, it screws up your breathing. (That was another thing I wanted to learn about. All arguments of toxic additives in big tobacco products aside, the paper in cigarettes is soaked in a weak bath of salt-peter or something akin to it. Take all the tobacco out of a cigarette and light the paper and watch what happens. It's almost like slow-motion magician's flash paper. I found that cigarettes made me cough up fleghm, but that pipe tobacco, organically grown did not. Hmm.)
My current 'addictions' include Coffee and downloads of sci-fi TV. But with no current Doctor Who and Dollhouse heading for the axe, I guess that issue will resolve itself.
-FL
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why would anyone quit? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Why would anyone quit? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously why would anyone choose to quit? I periodically quit just to feel the pain of it but that is just self flagellation.
I had to.
A hand tremor as a surgeon is _not_ what your patients want to see. As an aside, to break the ice with some patients I do a variation of the Gene Wilder's deputy on "Blazing Saddles"....
Pt: So how steady are your hands?
[I hold up a steady left hand]
Pt: Good, steady as a rock!
[While bringing up a flapping right hand and with a southern draw]
Me: Yeah, but this here is ma' operatin' hand.
Usually get a good chuckle from my patients, but every once in a while I get a wild-eyed-jaw-dropping-looking-for-the-nearest-fire-exit look that totally makes the joke worth it.
Luckily most caffeine addicts (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, Tylenol does not contain caffeine. You're probably thinking of Excedrin, which is aspirin/acetaminophen/caffeine.
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, you're not alone. There's many of us who've gone on the wagon to be free from the stuff.
Re:I Just Quit Caffeine (Score:5, Funny)
I can't imagine why Excedrin [wikipedia.org] helped:
Turns out that taking the drug you're jonesing for helps ease withdrawal symptoms.