POZ Community Forums
Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Mental Health & HIV => Topic started by: bimazek on November 27, 2007, 06:18:30 pm
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Caffeine even in small amounts causes anxiety sleeplessness Doctor said quit
this is the best thing the Doctor at big university hiv clinic ever told me and it works
i was having anxiety and anxiety attacks every night and just from two cokes
when i stopped all Caffeine even in small amounts
all my anxiety sleeplessness
went away
there was even an article about it up on the wall of the exam room
so if you have any mental issues first get all substances out of your life
god knows what cigs will do
i never did pot but
there was a very good scientific american article a few years ago about the brain producing natural canabiliods and how that was regulator of mood so if you or on med marijuana i would not be against that
even one cup of coffee in AM can cause anxiety all day and even panic attacks at night
true
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Ya know...that's just swell & all, but at a certain point life just ain't livin' for me. Give me coffee or give me death.
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my only vices are smoking and drinking Coke.
I gave up the cigs a month ago ;D
but I will never give up my 2-liter a-day Coke habit. >:(
(as I told my doc, I'll give up my HIV meds first LOL)
mikie
(who sleeps like a baby every night)
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I didn't know about this. I just started drinking coffee everyday a few years ago. There seems to be so many different reports about coffee now. I'm starting to wonder what is right.
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Coffee certainly CAN have those effects; but there are compromises, short of giving up, that you make to eliminate the problems.
Other than giving up smoking, I really haven’t gotten into this idea that all these supposedly ‘bad’ things have to be totally eliminated from my life.
Moderation works fine for me .. and I would be lost without that first cup of strong black coffee first thing in the morning (which, by the way, I have found to be by far and away the most effective way of warding off Truvada headaches).
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I hope you are right "Vokz". I just started really liking coffee. I hate to give it up. It is almost getting to the point where everything fun is now bad for us. :-[
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I believe for a lot of us caffeine in small doses ( coffee) is a stimulant that in fact relieves the symptoms of anxiety. I know that after my morning coffee I am much more ready to face the world than before.
Its like the kids that get a stimulant for ADHD or something like that. It helps them focus and overcome the attention deficit.
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Ya know...that's just swell & all, but at a certain point life just ain't livin' for me. Give me coffee or give me death.
Amen to that. Coffee and certain foods are two of my major pleasures in life.
But for some people it's a good idea.
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give up coffee? no way! one cup with a joint is, sometimes, the only way I get out of bed. lol.
B.
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I drink coffee every morning and at least one diet pepsi during the day. I don't have any extra anxiety and in fact take a nap every day and sleep well at night. Well, except for last night, but that could have been because of all the excitement of it being Christmas and all.
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the other problem with caffeine is that a tolerance builds up and you need it to just get up
in every big city there is a gay swim team and adult st8t swim team they usually swim at 6am or 7am and again at 6pm, they get the pick me up naturally
my point is alot of people think they are having anxiety attacks or cant sleep and then get on heavy anxiety meds or other psych meds and the whole problem could have been eliminated by just not drinking coffee which causes the mental unbalance
my experience it you peak and then crash just like sugar
and just plain water give 50% of the pick me up with none of the crash withdrawal or dependency
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Gee, I have to have my coffee in the morning for that Atripla loop. If I don't I am even falling down at times. I find that it gives me the legs I need to stand on for the day. I do not think I could go without it. One large cup once a day. Besides isnt that why I take the Busprione, prozac, ruspridal,and xanax for, to conteract its affects and fight off that anxiety. (just kidding of course, its not because of the coffee) But still I have to agree that it is one of the things in life I am not giving up, I have given up enough already.
Peter
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Ok. Let me qualify what I said in my previous post in this thread. I suffer from anxiety....which is actually reduced when I drink coffee.
HOWEVER.....I do not drink coffee except in the morning because if I drink it with dinner or after dinner or with dessert ( or anytime after 6PM) it will prevent me from sleeping.
But I really want to say that it is an individual thing and one cannot make generalizations based on ones OWN experience.
So I only speak for myself when I say that coffee helps me with anxiety.
I hope, Bimazek, that you find relief from the sleeplessness. I totally agree about drinking water and exercise and not drinking coffee at night. But gotta have it in the AM.
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I need coffee in the morning to counteract the effects of the neurontin I have to take every evening for my peripheral neuropathy. With all due respect, bimazek, as someone not even on meds much less for 15 years your advice isn't necessarily the best course for every HIV-er here, no matter how many times you wish to assert otherwise.
That said, certainly caffeine does contribute for many people their anxiety issues, though I think it only aggravates it, not causes it. Anxiety is a NATURAL feeling in the body left over from our primordial primate days being chased by tigers, etc. It's not abnormal for this to become activated in our bodies when we are dealing with a life threatening illness.
As such, I only drink coffee in the morning because of my neurontin intake, and then only drink water the remainder of the day.
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in every big city there is a gay swim team and adult st8t swim team they usually swim at 6am or 7am and again at 6pm, they get the pick me up naturally
Yeah, well...submerging oneself in a huge vat of cold water does tend to perk one up a little. But so what? Are you gonna tell me you know first hand that not a one of them had a cup o' joe on the way to the pool in the morning?
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I will not give up my caffeine! :D
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I am new to all this but I find drinking a sugar free Red Bull in the morning helps with the depression and the fog I seem to get stuck in. I don't know I guess caffeine effects everyone differently. For me I look forward to that Red Bull and I need all the little things to help get though the day at this point.
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Hey, whatever works.
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I drink coffee all the time and any time during the day. The only time a back off is if I'm going to pass a kidney stone. Then it's jugs of cranberry juice. Once the kidney stone is gone it's back to the coffee. I keep Folgers in business. You won't come to my home without there being coffee and a frig full of Pepsi. I even drink coffee in the hospital and with my ID doctor. NO DECAF Please...
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wanna know how much of a coke-head (as in "cola") I am? ;D
for the past two years we've held a party/contest for my partner's bday called Pooltag (like the redbull Flutag event sorta). the internet provided me with the info to know that it takes 50 empty 2-liter pop bottles to float 100 lbs. The object of Pooltag? Build a float out of pop bottles and get across the pool. Best skit and design wins!
http://reigningpages.com/pooltag
Needless to say with me drinking a 2-liter bottle of Coke-Cola a day by myself, we've got well over 500 pop bottles stored on the patio right now! That's just how many we've saved up since I moved into my partner's house just over a year ago. I still feel bad about leaving over 450 bottles in the basement of my old house. (My xlandlord was a jerk and deserved the problem though, so I don't feel too bad. LOL) I'm figuring this year all my guests need to do is bring some duct tape over (along with their swim suits), cause there's enough bottles here already to build quite a few floats.
mikie
(who only has the strength and energy to host such a crazy party by drinking all of that cola loaded with the caffeinne :D )
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I gave up coffee when any hot (or remotely warm) liquid started making my face flush a bright red. I hate HIV. :'(
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I gave up coffee because I could not stop after two cups and then I got very nervous and easily upset
and also I took it with sugar and milk and it upset my gums so I thought I just stop
had a headache one day and that was that. i think one cup or so is ok, but I couldnt stop after one cup.
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I found that even small amounts of caffeine (I gave up coffee for tea when I feel I need it)... causes me problems at bedtime. I already have issues and have noticed that caffeine combined with night-time gym workouts, can affect sleep.
However, one interesting thing I've found that I don't understand is that drinking hot chocolate seems to give me a lift without nearly so many sleep issues. For me, hot chocolate is what I make in my kitchen from cocoa... no prepacked stuff that 50% sugar. I use only about a spoonful of sugar for a half-cup of cocoa. You gotta get used to it because it's bitter... but it not only gives me a caffeine lift, it also elevates my mood without making me feel as nervous as coffee always did. Those of you that gave up coffee might want to give it a try. Good ole Hershey's or Nestle's cocoa ... follow the recipe on the container, double the cocoa and dramatically reduce the sugar.
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I can drink a diet Pepsi at 10:00 and be asleep by 11:00. It's all different for different people. The cocoa does sound good!
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I swear I never feel the caffeine from a soda. Not sure why that is.
Oh, and I just had a delightful double espresso.
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I don't feel the caffeine from soda either, anymore. I used to when I used to drink 12-packs of Mountain Dew in a day's time.
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I swear I never feel the caffeine from a soda. Not sure why that is.
because we are addicts and have built up a tolerance. ;D
"even in small amounts" would only pertain to someone who infrequently or never ingests caffeine. Everyone who drinks coffee, soda, tea, etc, has already been ingesting caffeine and has started to build up a tolerance to that amount.
If you "anxious" and drink 4 cups of coffee a day, cut back to two cups and see the difference ;) oh, and as you cut back or stop ingesting caffeine watch out for the withdrawal symptoms too! That no-caffeine headache is a killer! :o
mikie
(who starts the day and ends the day with a Coke, and drinks a 2-liter a day as any less brings on that withdrawal-headache. Heck, just going 4 hrs without a soda will bring on that damned headache. LOL)
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I swear I never feel the caffeine from a soda. Not sure why that is.
Oh, and I just had a delightful double espresso.
She says with her "Let's Do Coke!" avatar.
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That was a good one, no?
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Very seldom drink Coffee. Never did like the taste of it. I do like tea though....Hot tea, iced tea, green tea.
As far other beverages go, I always buy the diet and caffeine free soda's, but I still try to stick with the natural fruit juices as much as possible, and I like my apple juice everyday.
Ray
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Yes, that's one of the things I miss being diabetic, is fruit juice. I suppose there are the reduced sugar fruit juices, but they just don't seem as satisfying. Of course, that could all be in my head. I love iced tea, and I used to love sweet tea-another thing I can't partake of anymore. But I've found a pretty good diet green tea by Turkey Hill that's actually on sale right now at Kroger's. It's part of their 10 for $10 sale. I think I'll get a couple.
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I loathe sweet tea. It's just nasty. I prefer my iced tea plain with a wedge of lemon.
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Im an absolute Coffee junkie.
I need several cups a day and just before bed i need a coffee, if i have to go a few hours without, i get the shakes. I never have a problem sleeping although i snore like a wailing banshee with a sore throat.
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My name is Michael. I am a caffeine addict. I WANT the lift. Coffee always delivers.
:)
Mike M
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I'm obsessive with only buying "fair trade" coffee. This helps support the poor, starving children of farmers in obscure, far away places and hence makes me feel personally better about caring for Heath Ledger mental issues.
It also just better quality. I scored a bag of sun-dried Ethiopian Yirgacheffe last month and it was divine. It's also locally roasted.
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Philly,
You should also try Sumatra Mandheling (I think the spelling is correct). It's from GAYOLAND in Sumatra, Indonesia - up near/in the Aceh region where the tsunami hit.
It has a quadruple tick, being "single origin", "fairtrade", "organic" and "shade grown".
It is also makes a nice full bodied coffee.
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Hmmm... generally when I've had any Sumatra I don't find it as exciting as many others. It always seems a bit obvious. Ethiopian, which of course is where the coffee bean first originated from, is wonderfully balanced. The one I was raving about is specifically the Oromia Sundried Yirgacheffe. I also had some delightful Rwanda "AA" Bufcafe Gkongoro recently. I've also had excellent coffee from Sulawesi which I know is closer to your neck of the woods :)
Perhaps I've just not found the right one, so I'll jot this down and look for it. Philadelphia is actually a marvelous city for coffee... I can find most anything. I see it listed right now at my roasters, specifically the Sumatra Mandeheling Harimau Tiger Triple Picked.
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Oh, I should thank you for putting me onto this stuff as well. I'd always imagined that it would be incredibly expensive for me as I tend to go through a kg of beans every month or so. You kept going on about the stuff, so I googled to find a local supplier and suss out the price.
It turned out that there was a fair trade wholesaler/retailer about 3 or 4 blocks from my house tucked away in an obscure back lane. Also, it is not that much more expensive than what I was paying at the supermarket ($40 a kg for the free-trade, compared to about $28 for the other). The taste, however, easily compensates for the increased price.
As a card carrying poof, I could not go past a coffee from Gayoland ;D, and I do like my coffee full bodied. They source their coffee from about 10 different countries. I have to drop in there in the next few days for new supplies so I'll try the Ethiopian this time. They have a small cafe there as well and make the most divine affogato with organic vanilla bean icecream and organic free trrade coffee. It's orgasmic :P
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I'd read up on that Ethiopian first -- it may not be for you. I'd not call it full bodied, but I would call it complex. You definitely should at least try some, though the sun dried is hard to find. Plain Yirgacheffe is easy, at least here.
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their website says that the Ethiopian Coffee is from the Sidamo region with a medium to full body with lively citrus flavours. I'll chat to the barista to find out more about and try one to see how it is. sounds interesting though.
my preference for full bodied coffee comes from the fact that most of my mates as a kid had peasant Sicilian backgrounds.