*whimper*

I think quitting smoking might be easier for me than quitting caffeine.

Sept. 30, 2004 -- Researchers are saying that caffeine withdrawal should now be classified as a psychiatric disorder.

A new study that analyzes some 170 years' worth of research concludes that caffeine withdrawal is very real -- producing enough physical symptoms and a disruption in daily life to classify it as a psychiatric disorder. Researchers are suggesting that caffeine withdrawal should be included in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), considered the bible of mental disorders.


"I don't think this means anyone should be worried," says study researcher Roland Griffiths, PhD, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "What it means is that the phenomenon of caffeine withdrawal is real and that when people don't get their usual dose, they can suffer a range of withdrawal symptoms."


His research, published in the October issue of Psychopharmacology, analyzes 66 previous studies on the effects of caffeine withdrawal.

1 Coffee Sets the Stage

Griffiths' analysis shows as little as one cup of coffee can cause an addiction and withdrawal from caffeine produces any of five clusters of symptoms in some people:


Headache, the most common symptom, which affects at least of 50% of people in caffeine withdrawal
Fatigue or drowsiness
"Unhappy" mood, depression, or irritability
Difficulty concentrating
Flu-like symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and stiffness.

"Onset of these symptoms typically occurs within 12 to 24 hours of stopping caffeine and peaks one to two days after stopping," Griffiths tells WebMD. "The duration is between two and nine days."

A new revelation in Griffith's analysis may be what upgrades caffeine withdrawal from its current "more study is needed" status to "disorder" status: These withdrawal symptoms are severe enough in about one in eight people to interfere with their ability to function on a day-to-day basis.

"The withdrawal symptoms can be mild or severe, but it's estimated that 13% of people develop symptoms so significant that they can't do what they normally would do -- they can't work, they can't leave the house, they can't function," he says.

Caffeine withdrawl I DO understand. I get severe headaches for about a week if I back off the caffeine.

Yeah, I had a week a few days where I couldn't get caffine and I developed a strong headache until I was able to get some.

Personally though, I don't think I'd have too many problems going off caffine. When I was 15-18, the only thing I drank was pop. I'd usually go on my computer and have 6-7 cans of Pepsi sitting there after only a few hours. Then I developed a kidney stone the day after my 18th birthday and was told that pop can be a cause of that. I've since cut down to drinking only one thing of pop a day and water the rest of it. Eliminating the little pop I drink wouldn't be bad I don't think, not as bad as someone who only drinks caffinated stuff.

It doesn't strike me as a psychiatric disorder though if, at worse case, it can last up to nine days. There are definitely things that are a lot worse to suffer withdrawal for.

I suppose I should give the stuff up. I've become too healthy to hang onto my last vice... even though it is such a wee vice with so few bad effects, and a few good ones. *sigh*

Doesn't it have to be a mental addiction to be a psychiatric disorder? If not then I'm going to have to classify a stiff back as a psychiatric disorder as it gives me an unhappy mood and makes me irritable all day long.

A physical addiction can cause a psychiatric disorder. People who do meth are prime examples, where the lack of sleep coupled with the neural overload create psychosis and extreme antisocial behaviors.

I've managed to cut my caffiene intake down to one coke per day, and even that is going to have to stop. The hardest thing about not drinking caffiene is that your beverage options become severely limited. I can't drink anything with aspartame or sugar/corn syrup in it either. That pretty much limits me to water at restaurants and decaff tea at home. Go me.

I totally agree with you there. I quit smoking after 15 years without a problem. I've tried to stop drinking diet coke a million times, but just can't give it up to save my life.

Caffeine withdrawl I DO understand. I get severe headaches for about a week if I back off the caffeine.


Wasn't it you who said in the other thread you just don't understand why people don't quit smoking at will?

I don't.

Quitting caffeine is not something I think I would have a problem doing. Withdrawls are temporary and short term.

I've never tried.

In my bachelor days a long, long time ago, my lifestyle was... ummmm.... typically bachelor.

I recall one day at work, a middle-aged friend was looking quite miserable. He explained that he was having stomach pains and that he was going to the hospital to get checked out. That was the last time I saw him. There was exploratory surgery, they found untreatable stomach cancer, and he died three months later.

I was also having stomach pains. Nothing serious, just a dull pain and lots of gas. With trepidation, I went to my doctor who arranged a pile of tests including bloodwork and x-rays after fasting and drinking a horrible barium concoction. When the test results came in, the doc said that he had some bad news. My heart almost stopped. He said I had a small duodenal ulcer, and that it was easily treatable. Man was I relieved.

I got a prescription, and took pills for a couple of days. Then I found out that Librax was a tranquilizer. I threw the pills in the garbage.

My life style was;
1. I made and drank home-made wine - it wasn't very good. Ok... it was corrosive.
2. One of the other bachelors I was sharing an apartment with made home-made beer. It had a bite.
3. I ate irregularly, and pizza was a mainstay.
4. Work was fast-paced and stressful, although I quite enjoyed it.
5. I drank coffee... lots of it. It was a social thing. Coffee pool responsibilities would rotate through the offices on a weekly basis, as we all took our turn managing the coffee pool.

I didn't much fancy having an ulcer, so a life style change was in order. I realized that I didn't really like coffee. The taste sucked. I completely stopped drinking it. I'm not a zealot about it, but I might average two cups of coffee a year. I drink it in business situations where it's too awkward to say no.

I've been off coffee for more than 25 years. I also don't have any ulcers, and I never took any medication beyond those first couple of days. I still make and drink homemade wine. My wife says it's corrosive. I have lots of stress at work. Granted, my eating habits have improved immensely and I drink bottled/draft beer instead of homemade brew.

I'm happy about not being a coffee drinker. I'm convinced that I'm healthier because of it. Caffeine is a stimulant drug, and an addiction. It's also completely socially acceptable. Maybe someday it will be recognized as a health risk the way nicotine is today. Maybe there will be coffee drinking bans the way there are smoking bans... but probably not in my lifetime.

Thicket

Jinjre,
Have you ever tried Diet Hansen's? It's a soda and it's aspartame free. Also caffeine free. That's what I drink. I'm pretty sure any grocery store will carry it. Our Safeway has it.

I can't drink caffeine because it makes my heart skip. So, the Diet Hansen's is good for me. You can't get it in a restaurant, but at least you can have something besides water and tea at home. :wiggle:

Artio

Hate to tell you Thicket, but your ulcer almost certainly wasn't caused by anything in your life style, other than perhaps consumption of a bacteria called H. Pylori. They can make an ulcer hurt more, but they don't cause ulcers.

However, it sounds like those might have been positive life style changes in any result!

http://www.umm.edu/digest/ulcers.htm

Oh darn! Panamah beat me to it!

Ulcers are caused by bacteria. There! I said it too! :)

As for being healthy... you never know what things you use daily are doing to you. There's a pretty strong theory that the aluminum compounds used in antiperspirants contribute dramatically to the cause of Alzheimer's. Face creams? Lots of carcenogens in them but they aren't required to have an FDA testing if you are absorbing them through your skin rather than pigging out on them! Hair conditioners that "open the hair folicles" to absorb moisture, colors, texture, etc... if it can open your hair folicle, what else can it open for absorption of these untested chemicals?

Healthy people are killing themselves with personal care products :( Me, too!

I think the aluminum connection to alzheimer's got dropped a few years back. Most of the alarmist crap you find about stuff is... alarmist crap. People get themselves worked up about the damned stuff.

For instance, I was talking to an English guy I work with. He thinks its hilarious how terrified we all are of terrorists. He's lived in a country that's had terrorists for decades. In reality, what's the likelyhood you will be harmed by a terrorist? How many zeroes after a decimal point follow by a one?

Oh well...if you get people scared you can get them to do things like buy your product or reelect you.

Have you ever tried Diet Hansen's? It's a soda and it's aspartame free.

Hansen's uses splenda/sucralose as its sweetener. That stuff makes me absolutely green about the gills. Apparently a lot of people have problems with stomach upset from splenda.

I seem to have a load of dietary restrictions, so pretty much anything carbonated is out for me anymore unless I want to pay the price later. Ditto for most sweets of any sort.

I've pretty much been told by my doctors that I need to eat "food as god made it". Nothing processed. It's not bad at home, but trying to go out to eat can be a real 'adventure' for me.

All I can say is I feel anyones pain who has to give up caffeine. When I found out I was pregnant the very first thing I was told was "no more caffeine for you". Now mind you I was a strong believer in Mountain Dew Code Red. In fact I drank that almost to the exclusion of anything else. Oh yes wanna talk headaches AND irritability, try kicking caffeine along with the regular hormonal changes that come with pregnancy. I am just lucky we all managed to survive it!

LOL! Good story. Yikes, I can only imagine.

For instance, I was talking to an English guy I work with. He thinks its hilarious how terrified we all are of terrorists. He's lived in a country that's had terrorists for decades. In reality, what's the likelyhood you will be harmed by a terrorist? How many zeroes after a decimal point follow by a one?

Oh well...if you get people scared you can get them to do things like buy your product or reelect you.

Yea? Well try telling that to the thousands of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 in the WTC or who were in the hijacked planes. I'm not saying a person has to be paranoid and live in fear of terrorists, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna take the attitude that it could never happen to me or someone I know. What's that saying? "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst"?

But I agree that people have been using "scare" tactics to get into office. Kinda like how Kerry is trying to scare young people into believing the President is going to reinstate the draft (which he is NOT) or scare the elderly into thinking the president is going to do away with social security (another Kerry lie).

Yea? Well try telling that to the thousands of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 in the WTC or who were in the hijacked planes. I'm not saying a person has to be paranoid and live in fear of terrorists, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna take the attitude that it could never happen to me or someone I know. What's that saying? "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst"?

But I agree that people have been using "scare" tactics to get into office. Kinda like how Kerry is trying to scare young people into believing the President is going to reinstate the draft (which he is NOT) or scare the elderly into thinking the president is going to do away with social security (another Kerry lie).

Don't really see the point for saying that, but from what I read, Panamah was referring more towards people scared about getting hurt from antiperspirants and cosmetics rather than terrorism, terrorism was just an example to reinforce her point.

As for Kerry, he isn't the only one that says that. Try watching something other than mainstream media propaganda, then you will finally see the truth that the draft is imminent at our current rate, and social security is dwindling due to our debt from Bush's spending. Kerry doesn't say Bush will get rid of social security or reinstate the draft, but rather that if Bush continues, then he won't have a choice.

With caffeine addiction, I can entirely believe how hard it is to give up the mountain dew and other soda. I drink anywhere from 2-5 mountain dews in my average day, and if I go for a day or two without any caffeine then I get some serious headaches.

Yea? Well try telling that to the thousands of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 in the WTC or who were in the hijacked planes....

Yes, it was horrible. Lots of horrible things happening. But the idea here is to put the risk of danger to yourself or your family into a sane perspective. For instance, the risk of dying in a car crash is far, far, far greater than you getting hurt by a terrorist. But we're spending millions of dollars... no probably billions to prevent something that is unlikely to happen versus spending almost nothing on things that are far more likely to happen.

People watch TV and they see horrible things happening in the world, hear reports of really bad stuff happening, but they don't think critically about what the REAL risks are in their lives. The REAL risks, the things that do and will happen, are things like new diseases (and old ones). An extremely virulent flu that will kill millions is pretty much guaranteed to happen just like it did at the beginning of the last century. Scores of people die in car wrecks. These are the things we SHOULD be wringing our hands over because they are risks that each one of us faces every day. But we're not. We're wringing our hands over things that are extremely unlikely.

I'm not saying you shouldn't take reasonable steps to keep terrorists from repeating 9/11 or worse but people are getting nuts and inflating the danger while ignoring the real dangers there are in life, or at least not thinking about them.

Ironically you look at a place (Israel) that may be less frightened about Terrorism and it is almost a weekly occurence. I think fundamentally when something frightening gets to be so common humans tend to numb themselves emotionally as a coping mechanism. Needless to say I hope that we never have to reach that point in america. Although intellectually it's easy to say that by the numbers Traffic accidents claim more american live the Terrorism, it's easy to see how it's hard for people to emotionally separate themselves from what is a spectacular event and what is considered commonplace.

Scores of people die in car wrecks. These are the things we SHOULD be wringing our hands over

So does this make me realistic or a worry wart, since I drive to the 7-11 that is literally one block from my house because I have to cross an insanely busy street with no crosswalk and figure if I'm going to get hit by a car, I"d like to have my own car around me to act as a sheild.

Edited to add: I am more afraid of many of our politicians than I am about terrorists. I s'pose that makes me unusual.

Its probably good we can sort of ignore fear of real risks, like driving. Otherwise no one would drive. Hmmm... then again, if everyone were as afraid of it as they should be it'd probably be a lot safer to drive. Conundrum roll please! What are the odds of you dying of a heart attack? Pretty high! So if people reacted with the same sort of fear they react to possible terrorist attacks, they'd be clutching their hearts and running to ER every time they got gas.

No Jinjre, you're probably sane. I don't know what the statistics are on getting hit by cars when you're a pedestrian in that situation, but they're probably pretty bad.

I don't think people should ignore their fears, but I also don't think they should be slaves to their fears. Sometimes you just need to sit down and ask yourself if you're overreacting and getting yourself worked up over nothing. Shoot, my sister used to be deathly afraid of birds. Talk about weird fears! I have a brother that is phobic about worms. And me... well, don't get me started on Tomato Hornworms. Although it isn't phobic and doesn't keep me from growing tomatos, I fear those bloody ugly things WAY out of proportion to the actual danger they represent to me. Now when I have a little talk with myself about why I fear them its stupid stuff like "I'm afraid I might touch one and it'll be all squishy and horrible" or "What if I'm pruning dead parts off my tomato and I don't see it and touch it?" It isn't things like, "I'm afraid militants strap tiny explosives to it and it will detonate when I come outside to pick a tomato and it'll splatter me with its horrid green goo".

But back to the original subject, which I've forgotten about now. I've decided to go cold turkey on caffeine as soon as my can of coffee runs out. And this starts off a whole new fear: Fear of Caffeine Withdrawls

Boy oh boy, this is going to suck.

Heh, good luck with that. I'm trying to go caffine lite, will never go caffine free more than likely =-p

Pan, a suggestion from one who has done the quit caffeine thing: taper taper taper.

If you make your own coffee, buy decaf and regular. Start by cutting it in half. Wait at least one week, then cut THAT in half again. Wait another week, cut it in half again. Eventually you'll be down to 3 grains of caffeinated per pot of decaf. And no headaches along the way. This is the same procedure they use to detox other drugs out of people's systems without them going into the DTs.

Once you've substituted decaf totally, then you can quit coffee if you so choose. Be warned, it is really difficult to find beverages in restaraunts which contain neither caffeine nor sugar. Be prepared to start drinking water, which, so I'm told, is good for you.

I've always done the cold turkey thing and have done fairly well just toughing it out. If I get real bad, I'll drink some diet coke or diet pepsi, its got caffeine. I absolutely hate decaf coffee, it tastes like crap to me. And I think I'd probably cheat and not include the decaf.

I think I'll continue to drink diet sodas with caffeine, but taper off to an acceptable level. Like 1 or 2 a day. Then maybe I'll quit altogether at some point. Bleh... why can't caffeine be a health food?

I don't like decaf coffee either, and I absolutely could not imagine not having my coffee every morning. :eek:

Good luck kicking the caffeine habit. I finally beat it but I still miss sweet iced tea, the kind served here gives you more of a sugar buzz than a caffeine fix.

I have to admit that giving up caffeine was a LOT easier than cigarettes.

I kicked my mountain dew habit around 3 years ago.. my kidneys love me now.. replaced it with water.. of course because of the long hours I work.. I need to find some evidence that Sugar Free Red Bulls are bad for you.. please.. find something.. because they are becoming addicting!

Is there caffeine in them?

aspartame


I will not drink something that embalms me from the inside out. =p

I will not drink something that embalms me from the inside out.

Pretty much any food with preservatives in it does this. Which is pretty much any processed food.

I figure better embalmed than spending my life eating leaves and twigs.

Quality over Quantity...I don't want to live to be 100, and once I'm dead, I don't care how long it takes for what's left of me to decompose. Actually, I"m thinking cremation is the way to go.

I always did like barbecues :wink:

Thicket

Well, I wisely decided not to try cold turkey... so I went room-temperature turkey. I switched to half-caf and only at home. So no more coffee at work. On Sunday I felt like crap, couldn't move off the sofa. Couldn't find the motivation to do anything! I definitely feel less bouncy this week. But I've found there's a pretty decent amount of caffeine in tea, and tea is good for you. So I'm replacing coffee with tea at work.

The good part is when I do drink my half-caf coffee... I feel SO bouncy!