Caffeine withdrawal

[Sanlmar]

One of my kids did DNA testing through 23andme.

I know, giving your DNA to the Internet. I failed as a father somehow.

One of the results speculated that she was not particularly affected by caffeine. We both found that to be true. Like you, I can drink a cup of coffee and go to sleep immediately.

Things like “preference for salt vs sweet” were all pretty spot on too.

I wonder what aspect of our chemistry correlates to those sorts of things.

If you can get past the privacy issue, you definitely get your entertainment value for the $100 or so bucks.

One of the results spilled out last names of people you were likely to be related to. My kid had never heard the last names of certain cousins and damn, it was a hit. Creepy

[Dan Druff]

One of my kids did DNA testing through 23andme.

I know, giving your DNA to the Internet. I failed as a father somehow.

One of the results speculated that she was not particularly affected by caffeine. We both found that to be true. Like you, I can drink a cup of coffee and go to sleep immediately.

Things like “preference for salt vs sweet” were all pretty spot on too.

I wonder what aspect of our chemistry correlates to those sorts of things.

If you can get past the privacy issue, you definitely get your entertainment value for the $100 or so bucks.

One of the results spilled out last names of people you were likely to be related to. My kid had never heard the last names of certain cousins and damn, it was a hit. Creepy

Yeah, I wish I wasn't concerned about the privacy thing, or I'd do 23andme. Would be especially interesting because I have zero first cousins and zero second cousins. So I'd like to see what it spit out regarding that, among other things.

No one in my immediate family is negatively affected by caffeine. This includes both parents, my brother, and my sister. (Benjamin hasn't tried it yet.)

All of us can ingest a lot of caffeine and go right to sleep.

So there must be a hereditary element to this.

But perhaps that same tolerance is making the withdrawals much tougher. I don't know. That's my working theory right now.

I do know that I quit it 3 weeks ago, and my body and brain have flipped out badly. You have no idea. Maybe correlation equals causation here, maybe not. But I hope I'm right.

[adamantium]

One of my kids did DNA testing through 23andme.

I know, giving your DNA to the Internet. I failed as a father somehow.

One of the results speculated that she was not particularly affected by caffeine. We both found that to be true. Like you, I can drink a cup of coffee and go to sleep immediately.

Things like “preference for salt vs sweet” were all pretty spot on too.

I wonder what aspect of our chemistry correlates to those sorts of things.

If you can get past the privacy issue, you definitely get your entertainment value for the $100 or so bucks.

One of the results spilled out last names of people you were likely to be related to. My kid had never heard the last names of certain cousins and damn, it was a hit. Creepy

Yeah, I wish I wasn't concerned about the privacy thing, or I'd do 23andme. Would be especially interesting because I have zero first cousins and zero second cousins. So I'd like to see what it spit out regarding that, among other things.

No one in my immediate family is negatively affected by caffeine. This includes both parents, my brother, and my sister. (Benjamin hasn't tried it yet.)

All of us can ingest a lot of caffeine and go right to sleep.

So there must be a hereditary element to this.

But perhaps that same tolerance is making the withdrawals much tougher. I don't know. That's my working theory right now.

I do know that I quit it 3 weeks ago, and my body and brain have flipped out badly. You have no idea. Maybe correlation equals causation here, maybe not. But I hope I'm right.

Im no fucking doctor but I highly doubt quitting pepsi cold turky is causing you any problems.

[igotnotoe]

In my humble opinion there are several things going on here creating a perfect storm of misery .

1.caffeine withdrawals
2. Sugar withdrawals
3 . Fight and flight response being activated based on throat issue. Made worse by caffeine and sugar withdrawals

It hasnt been mentioned if he stopped consuming sugar during this whole ordeal . But if he has, that only makes things worse . Sugar withdrawals are sort of like caffeine ones as no one really talks about it or makes a big deal about it . But both are terrible for a lot of people .

[BCR]

I think it can be a piece of the puzzle. That’s equivalent to two mugs of coffee. I drink more coffee than that and it’s noticeable when I don’t, ala headache and malaise, and I’m generally a moron who can’t think until I break down. People react to things differently. Maybe for you caffeine is like Ritalin to a hyperactive kid. It’s counter-intuitive that giving speed to a kid who won’t sit still quiets their mind, but for some, it does exactly that.

As I said before, that intersection of real health issue with anxiety is a particular bitch. Anxiety as a stand alone is a bitch, but when it arrives at the same time as a legitimate health issue, it’s anxiety on steroids. So yeah, you already feel out of sorts, are barely eating, barely sleeping, and had to abruptly change your entire pattern to life so I imagine breaking a 30 year addiction didn’t help the nerves. Your brain is wondering wtf is going on from a variety of changes. Pills and wean sounds smarter.

[Sanlmar]

The body is an amazing balance of chemistry. It is also remarkable how it adapts to the shit we do to it.

You can get that 24oz Prime Rib every Friday night. Then you go vegan and the body adjusts to that and subsequently finds even the notion of a Prime Rib repulsive.

BCR’s posts about the simultaneous assaults to the world as Druff’s body knew it makes a lot of sense.

Some people might have weened themselves down from sugar first then reduce caffeine gradually etc. The stress and confusion his system is experiencing is exhibiting itself.

Do you think a medically induced coma should be explored? At least until the end of the baseball regular season. The Dodgers just might prove too much for the old man.

[Pooh]

I've heard of caffeine causing anxiety but never the other way around. I'm guessing plecebo effect. Anxiety tends to reduce on its own in time. Shouldn't be too much longer.

[sonatine]

the cessation of any habit results in anxiety. a different form from whatever was generated by the abused substance but anxiety nonetheless.

[Pooh]

You want to talk anxiety. Try getting yourself off a drug that you were taking for five years to treat your, you guessed it, anxiety. Like having your teddy bear taken away when you were eight. Let's be real though. You're a fucking nut job and have been a nut job for as long as you can remember. It's only now affecting your every day life. It's affected most you've come in contact with since your first customer service cluster fuck.

[LarryLaffer]

Do you have a nutritionist you can talk to? or make an appointment with? Because that's the correct thing to do in your situation.


what is your problem with doctors visits. Do you even get regular physicals? You're in your mid 40s homie......



the last thing you should be doing is looking on the internet for answers. Doctors pretty much fucking hate you for it.


Druff are you the type of guy who will tell the doctor "oh well I read on Web MD and asked some internet forums and they said XXXXXXX" bc if you are, I feel bad for any doctor you encounter.

[v12cl]

1. Exercise more

2. Drink more water

[FPS_Russia]

Don't overlook sugar.
A glance at their corruption and it's way worse now.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...t-blame-at-fat
Bastards, that was sleazy af. .
I haven't researched it but it may be worthwhile to see what others are saying, I wouldn't be surprised if sugar wd dwarfs caffeine withdrawal.

[Pooh]

And as a meth guy i'll tell you that caffeine withdrawal is worse than meth withdrawal if you quit cold turkey

I love the way you put things sometimes. Big SetofKs fan.


Anyway, to everyone here... my post might have been a bit confusing, so let me clarify.

I already quit a decades-long caffeine habit cold turkey. I did this 3 weeks ago, shortly after my LPR symptoms showed up. I still have not beaten the LPR, though I can sometimes moderate its symptoms with a dry-mouth rinse (which oddly isn't intended to do this).

Right after quitting the caffeine, I came down with a series of crippling mental and physical problems which basically made my life hell. The last 4 weeks (the week of LPR symptoms and the subsequent 3 weeks of LPR symptoms AND the new mental/physical issues) have been the worst of my life by a wide margin. I would take my worst poker losing streak over this in a heartbeat.

Tried Xanax once, it gave me brief relief (as Xanax is known to do), then wore off after 3.5 hours and I was back to the same crap. Then I had a hangover the next day. Haven't done another since.

Anyway, all this time I assumed that the LPR fucked with my head in some way (perhaps due to the repeated sensation of having a hard time breathing while lying down), and that gave rise to the other problems.

The other problems have been so fucked up that it caused me to (unintentionally) lose 23 pounds in 3 weeks -- a staggering sum to lose in such a short time when you're not morbidly obese.

Then today I came to a realization: I was completely ignoring the fact that I cold-turkyed the caffeine 3 weeks ago. Went from 200mg/day to zero. And that's hardly trivial after decades of regular use.

So I looked up caffeine withdrawal on the internet, and unfortunately it's been poorly studied (which I feel is a mistake, given the staggeringly high caffeine consumption in this world). There has been scant research on it, but from what I can tell, it has been acknowledged that long-term caffeine use can markedly change your brain chemsitry, and cold-turkey quitting can send it into all kinds of fucked up directions.

My new theory is that I fucked myself by quitting caffeine so abruptly, which I did in an attempt to solve the LPR problem, without considering that I might bring on horrible new problems.

Anyway, I read that your brain pretty much normalizes itself when it gets the caffeine it wants again, so I went out and bought caffeine pills. Took 100mg at about 6:15pm. At first I felt kind of a weird jolt to my body, but then that subsided, and then I started feeling better. Right now I feel notably better than other nights during this 4-week nightmare, so that's a good start. Could be placebo effect, but I'm somewhat encouraged. The "caffeine high" should have worn off by now (4.5 hours later), so my better state couldn't be attributable to that. Will be interesting to see how I sleep tonight, though I still might have issues there, since the LPR problem still remains.

Anyway, I plan to keep taking the 100mg caffeine and seeing if I get continued improvement. If that really fixes it, after awhile I will try slowly tapering it off.

I still need to solve the LPR, but I am taking a test to determine whether it's reflux or something else (not 100% accurate, but may shed some light), and maybe I can get a handle on that problem, as well.

But I really hope I made a breakthrough here, as it was looking very hopeless.

Spoken like a true ignoramus. You don't get hangovers from taking one xanax especially the size you took. If you think you've had a hangover because you read it on the Internet then you're even dumber than we think on this subject. You've never even been drunk in your life so you don't even know what a real hangover is. Fuck. Here's reality for you. You have LPR. Allegedly. The uncomfortable feeling in your throat when you lay down is giving you anxiety attacks which is making the throat issue many times worse than it actually is. You believe you will choke to death when you sleep, but huge surprise, you don't actually choke when you're sleeping. Why you ask? Because the fucking anxiety that is causing your choking symptoms is not present while you are sleeping. This is all in your head. 100%. You're going to get to a point here soon when your brain will realize you won't be choking from LPR and the anxiety concerns will slowly fade away and you'll be more able to cope with this shit. There's no secret cure to anxiety you're going to miraculously uncover by searching the Internet. Not when literally everyone on Earth has tried to find a cure for anxiety. It's as simple as that. The placebo effect from whatever you think may work to help alleviate this shit is great and all but you aren't getting rid of anxiety attacks cold turkey.

Ever think your alleged hangover from the xanax was just your body beaten the fuck down both physically from not sleeping and mentally from worrying about choking 24/7? The xanax alleviated the symptoms for a whopping 3.5 hours. To get 3.5 hours of relief, especially for a dude who never took a pill in his life, is such a retardedly small dose that it's laughable you think you had some sort of hangover from it. BCR can attest to that.

[BCR]

I love the way you put things sometimes. Big SetofKs fan.


Anyway, to everyone here... my post might have been a bit confusing, so let me clarify.

I already quit a decades-long caffeine habit cold turkey. I did this 3 weeks ago, shortly after my LPR symptoms showed up. I still have not beaten the LPR, though I can sometimes moderate its symptoms with a dry-mouth rinse (which oddly isn't intended to do this).

Right after quitting the caffeine, I came down with a series of crippling mental and physical problems which basically made my life hell. The last 4 weeks (the week of LPR symptoms and the subsequent 3 weeks of LPR symptoms AND the new mental/physical issues) have been the worst of my life by a wide margin. I would take my worst poker losing streak over this in a heartbeat.

Tried Xanax once, it gave me brief relief (as Xanax is known to do), then wore off after 3.5 hours and I was back to the same crap. Then I had a hangover the next day. Haven't done another since.

Anyway, all this time I assumed that the LPR fucked with my head in some way (perhaps due to the repeated sensation of having a hard time breathing while lying down), and that gave rise to the other problems.

The other problems have been so fucked up that it caused me to (unintentionally) lose 23 pounds in 3 weeks -- a staggering sum to lose in such a short time when you're not morbidly obese.

Then today I came to a realization: I was completely ignoring the fact that I cold-turkyed the caffeine 3 weeks ago. Went from 200mg/day to zero. And that's hardly trivial after decades of regular use.

So I looked up caffeine withdrawal on the internet, and unfortunately it's been poorly studied (which I feel is a mistake, given the staggeringly high caffeine consumption in this world). There has been scant research on it, but from what I can tell, it has been acknowledged that long-term caffeine use can markedly change your brain chemsitry, and cold-turkey quitting can send it into all kinds of fucked up directions.

My new theory is that I fucked myself by quitting caffeine so abruptly, which I did in an attempt to solve the LPR problem, without considering that I might bring on horrible new problems.

Anyway, I read that your brain pretty much normalizes itself when it gets the caffeine it wants again, so I went out and bought caffeine pills. Took 100mg at about 6:15pm. At first I felt kind of a weird jolt to my body, but then that subsided, and then I started feeling better. Right now I feel notably better than other nights during this 4-week nightmare, so that's a good start. Could be placebo effect, but I'm somewhat encouraged. The "caffeine high" should have worn off by now (4.5 hours later), so my better state couldn't be attributable to that. Will be interesting to see how I sleep tonight, though I still might have issues there, since the LPR problem still remains.

Anyway, I plan to keep taking the 100mg caffeine and seeing if I get continued improvement. If that really fixes it, after awhile I will try slowly tapering it off.

I still need to solve the LPR, but I am taking a test to determine whether it's reflux or something else (not 100% accurate, but may shed some light), and maybe I can get a handle on that problem, as well.

But I really hope I made a breakthrough here, as it was looking very hopeless.

Spoken like a true ignoramus. You don't get hangovers from taking one xanax especially the size you took. If you think you've had a hangover because you read it on the Internet then you're even dumber than we think on this subject. You've never even been drunk in your life so you don't even know what a real hangover is. Fuck. Here's reality for you. You have LPR. Allegedly. The uncomfortable feeling in your throat when you lay down is giving you anxiety attacks which is making the throat issue many times worse than it actually is. You believe you will choke to death when you sleep, but huge surprise, you don't actually choke when you're sleeping. Why you ask? Because the fucking anxiety that is causing your choking symptoms is not present while you are sleeping. This is all in your head. 100%. You're going to get to a point here soon when your brain will realize you won't be choking from LPR and the anxiety concerns will slowly fade away and you'll be more able to cope with this shit. There's no secret cure to anxiety you're going to miraculously uncover by searching the Internet. Not when literally everyone on Earth has tried to find a cure for anxiety. It's as simple as that. The placebo effect from whatever you think may work to help alleviate this shit is great and all but you aren't getting rid of anxiety attacks cold turkey.

Ever think your alleged hangover from the xanax was just your body beaten the fuck down both physically from not sleeping and mentally from worrying about choking 24/7? The xanax alleviated the symptoms for a whopping 3.5 hours. To get 3.5 hours of relief, especially for a dude who never took a pill in his life, is such a retardedly small dose that it's laughable you think you had some sort of hangover from it. BCR can attest to that.

This is, in all probability, likely 100% accurate. That said, given you’ve went through it, you know you gained all this insight in hindsight. You know when you’re going through it, it’s the realest shit in the world. It’s not until you come out the other side that you’re able to look back at it and realize you prolonged and exacerbated the situation by headfucking yourself. Being a control freak makes it worse. I am one. Druff seems like one. You’re likely one. That doesn’t help when you’re used to being able to kind of bend shit to your will and reason things out. The dumbass who doesnt think too much has the advantage with anxiety.

[Dan Druff]

The Xanax did give me 3.5 hours of relief, followed by a moderate return of the symptoms (though not as bad as before I popped it), followed by a terrible exhaustion the next day.

I know the exhaustion wasn't because of lack of sleep or the previous day's stress, because it was different than any feeling I had before.

It wasn't fogginess or confusion. It wasn't "I need to go to bed" tiredness, but rather a very strong lethargy where I just had no energy to do anything. It was feeling uncomfortably fatigued.

Then about 6 hours after I woke up feeling that way, it noticeably lessened, and 2 hours after that, the lethargy was gone entirely.

100% that was a side effect from the Xanax, and in fact that's one of the most common side effects from it. Yes, the dose I took was small, but that's all one needs when they're taking it for the first time. The bigger doses are necessary when your body gets used to it.

Suffice to say that I hated that next day feeling and didn't feel the urge to pop a Xanax again, unless utterly necessary.

The LPR is real. It has affected my voice, where there's now a hoarseness sometimes. That can't be in my head. The doctor also saw redness in my throat. There is real irritation there, especially around the voice box area. That's why there's been no radio. On the days when I've talked most, things get worse. I'm trying to talk as little as possible.

It is unclear if the caffeine withdrawal contributed to my other problems. I will say that I've seen some improvement since taking 100mg of caffeine. The first day (Friday) was dramatic improvement, while other days weren't as good as Frida, but better than before. However, I didn't take any caffeine today (I can't because I'm taking certain tests related to the LPR, and I can't take caffeine for 2 days), and I'm not feeling that bad.

Caffeine withdrawal isn't well studied, but there are some credible papers linking it to decreased serotonin levels.

I have made major diet changes since this started. That's part of the reason I've lost over 20 pounds in such a short time. People telling me to cut out the soda or to eat better are too late. I didn't want to change my diet this abruptly, but I had to, because this is hell. I'm hoping eventually to get a full handle on the LPR, and then I can start bringing back foods I enjoy in moderation. At the moment I am taking no joy in eating, which sucks.

You do have to be an advocate for your own health, and decide what works best for you.

Doctors see tons of patients per day, and all of them want to feel like they're walking out with answers. Doctors don't usually want to say, "I don't know what this is", or, "Maybe you should hold off on the medication and see what happens." They want to give a sure-sounding diagnosis, prescribe you something, and send you on your way. They give you 15 minutes in most cases, and then they have to move on.

I'm not dismissing the value of doctors. In this situation, they were great for ruling out my concerns of potential major health issues, and a lot of the tests I've had have yielded useful information. I'm doing more tests, and will soon know even more. Sadly (or maybe fortunately), I may have uncovered an additional problem (probably unrelated to this) of which I was unaware, as a result of my latest ultrasound and bloodwork. I'll know more next week.

I have improved some over the past 2 weeks. Nowhere near better, but the last 2 weeks have been a hell of a lot better than the prior two, and I haven't taken any medication during that time. I'm just not ready to go down the medication/side effect/habituation rabbit hole yet. Still too early.

Pooh's obnoxiously dismissive message did have one element of truth to it. My body and brain might be getting used to the LPR flare-up, and that might be the reason for things starting to improve.

Right now the main focuses are curing the LPR (won't be easy) and the new potential problem which was just discovered on Monday.

I've spent an obscene number of hours reading all I can about LPR and the other issues I have. I'm not talking about WebMD, either. I've read National Institute of Health studies, lab reports, double-blind studies, medical journals, etc. I've become an expert on all of this shit. That's what you have to do if you want to get better. The idiot is the one who goes to a doctor, spends 15 minutes with him, and then blindly follows the recommendation.

There might be a four-host radio show at some point over the weekend, led by Brandon, which I'll be part of. I can't talk a lot because of the LPR, but I might be able to swing it if Brandon leads and I keep my speaking to a minimum.

[Pooh]

With all due respect my obnoxiously dismissive post was 100% accurate and reality for you because I basically went through the exact same thing six years ago so I already know the endgame.

[Crowe Diddly]

People telling me to cut out the soda or to eat better are too late.

pretty sure a lot of people here were telling you to give up soda and eat better for a long time now. at least since your first weight loss thread. We were too early, rather than too late, it seems.



I kid. Chronic illness of any sort sucks ass, and most of us here do too much of one thing or another. Or all the things.

[MumblesBadly]

I’ve heard that a shot of an Alex Jones compilation vid can soothe the worst of caffeine withdrawal symptoms...



Just don’t take the raw form in long and frequent doses, as it will seriously mess with your mind.