Coffee

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Caffeine:  Why bad?

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Ill take one.  Heavy cream, heavy sugar please.

[[De...]]

Hi Goto,

Coffee contains caffeine which is a stimulant and as such will aggravate the symptoms of withdrawal as will coca cola and tea. I drink decaffeinated tea and very occasionally decaffeinated coffee but even the decaffeinated still contains some caffeine although not as much.

Hope that helps.

Debbie 

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All I can say is that early off, coffee didn't bother me. ALL my symptoms were terrible and the coffee didn't seem to make any difference.  I was just bad. Now, even 4 sips of coffee really revs my symptoms and sends me for a tailspin. I've had to completely stop drinking any at this point.  Hard to explain, but the better I've gotten, the more sensitive I am to being thrown back into worse phases of withdrawal from any stimulants.

 

Caffeine acts on adenoreceptors in the brain, which isnt' hte same as GABA, but it's related to anxiety.  It displaces things and that is what causes the amped-up effect we all know and love from coffee. That's great with a normal brain, but in a brain that is already compromised in its ability to calm itself, it can cause more difficulty. 

 

I don't think it will necessarily keep healing from happening, but it may not feel good. Again- it wasn't an issue for me until I really began improving.

 

Hope this helps.

:)Parker

[[pi...]]

I drank coffee throughout my taper. I am not a huge coffee drinker, just love my morning latte. It didn't seem to cause any more problems than I already had, which were many.  I was also really benzo unwise for a very long time.

 

After I jumped off I had to quit it and any other caffeine completely.

 

About a few months ago I started drinking a small bit of decaf.  Then while visiting my son in January I accidently had the high test stuff. I also didn't notice anything really different than normal sxs.  I am now having a half caf latte every morning. Although I still have sxs, they are no better, no worse than without the coffee. 

 

I recently read about the positive affects of coffee  on depression.  Since I have never had depression perhaps this is a good way to avoid it completely.

 

pianogirl

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Thanks very much for the informative replies. I figured it affected insomnia and anxiety, but I wasn't sure if there was anything beyond that.

For some reason I've been wanting to drink twice as much.

And it does make me happy.

I can cut down. But if I have to stop totally, that would be very sad for me.

 

I have to stop drinking MORE of it though. Because THAT isn't good for migraines.

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Everyone metabolizes coffee differently.

 

I drank my coffee (one cup am and at 4 pm) daily throughout withdrawal. Those were two of my few good moments in the day.

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Because most of the symptoms of w/d are related to your nervous system being suddenly overstimulated, and coffee is a central nervous system stimulant.

 

I could not even remotely tolerate coffee while withdrawing. No way. It does exactly what you don't want during a withdrawal: stimulates your nervous system even more than it already is.