# Bad reaction to caffeine? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 18, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944 "2011-06-18T17:05:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/21 "2012-12-10T10:33:09Z")
I love it when my zombies get resurrected. 🙂 Yes, it’s 4:00 am in my time zone. Why am I on the Dope? Can’t sleep, anxious, restless, yeah. ---
**Author:** ![C9876](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@C9876](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C9876)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/22 "2018-09-11T21:50:59Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > I have no definitive answer for you, but I will share a personal anecdote. Note that my problem is different - no anxiety - but the point is that caffeine seems to have a strong impact on me. > > I have been struggling with chronic fatigue for the past 5 years. Not just tiredness, but confusion, inability to do logic (I’m a programmer) and memory issues. > > This year we made some headway with it. Amongst the many changes, I was advised to give up caffeine and cola-like drinks. As I said, I’ve been seeing good progress. > > About 10 days ago, because I was just so \*bored \*with water, I started drinking diet Mountain Dew. It was not on the list of cola-like drinks I should avoid, but is very high in caffeine. > > After about 5 days, I started having really bad headaches, and seemed to relapse with the fatigue. I woke with headaches and went to bed with headaches. > > Last Saturday and Sunday I napped most of the day. > > I stopped drinking the Mountain Dew and I am back to having mostly good days. . > > Was it the caffeine? Well, others will be quick to remind us that there is not a strict enough set of data to make a conclusion. No double-blind tests and a very small sample set. > > But I believe there is correlation and will continue to avoid caffeine. Software Developer for 20 years. Having issues for the past year or so with health. Getting worse over the last 3 months. Concentration issues and anxiety. Just starting to think that it might be related to coffee. I was drinking two big mugs a morning for years. Never had any problems. Learning new software and stress might be a factor. Going give up coffee for awhile and see if it helps. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/23 "2018-09-11T22:24:46Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I love it when my zombies get resurrected. 🙂 Yes, it’s 4:00 am in my time zone. Why am I on the Dope? Can’t sleep, anxious, restless, yeah. You still awake, Thelma? After all these years? Zoinks! ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/24 "2018-09-12T14:45:42Z")
I know this is a zombie thread so I’ll throw out a zombie response: > **['Caffeine psychosis' may have affected driver, lawyer says](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/dec/09/driver-may-have-been-suffering-caffeine-psychosis-/)** > > The Idaho motorist accused of striking down two pedestrians on the Washington State University campus may be suffering from “caffeine psychosis,” his lawyer said. This is a story from back in 2009 about a guy hopped up on goofballs (aka caffeine) running over pedestrians with his car. This happened at a university near me. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/25 "2018-09-12T15:46:06Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I love it when my zombies get resurrected. 🙂 Yes, it’s 4:00 am in my time zone. Why am I on the Dope? Can’t sleep, anxious, restless, yeah. > [@Beckdawrek](#): > > You still awake, Thelma? After all these years? Zoinks! Whoa! The zombie lives! Actually I was awake in the middle of the night last night and got on the Dope, but didn’t look at new posts so missed this. I don’t seem to have that problem with caffeine any more. In fact, I bought a new espresso machine last week (“free” with beaucoup amazon rewards points) and have been drinking a \*lot \*of coffee with no apparent ill effect. It could be that my life just sucked back in 2011 when I started this thread, and some of those problems have corrected themselves. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/26 "2018-09-12T16:33:44Z")
I had been having on-and-off problems with a very peculiar headache. The headache showed as one big pulse of pain, then several seconds of no pain. Pain pulse, no pain. Each session went on for a few minutes, then nothing until another session an hour later, etc. This was kind of scary, but before going to bore a doctor about it, I decided to give up caffeine for awhile and eliminate that as a possible cause. It has been three days since I have been off caffeine (after tapering down over the course of a couple of weeks), and the weird headache thing is gone. That’s a relief. Hopefully it continues. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2018, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944/27 "2018-09-12T16:49:16Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Twickster, what do you think it might be…? Not all caffeinated coffee has this extreme effect on me. Different brands have different effects. About twelve years ago my wife and I had some delicious coffee at a local restaurant, and made it a point to ask what brand it was. We started drinking that brand at home. A week or so later I started developing really awful throbbing occipital headaches, and ibuprofen wouldn’t touch them. Eventually I started to notice that they didn’t seem to happen on days I skipped coffee. So we switched brands, and the headaches went away. A couple of times since then we’ve tried various other brands/varieties of coffee. Once in a while we hit one that gives me headaches, and we end up tossing the remainder of those beans AIUI, coffee has a bunch of psychoactive compounds in it, not just caffeine. Different varieties of coffee beans grown in different soil and different climates contain these compounds in differing amounts. If one particular brand/variety of coffee is causing you problems, try switching to another and see what happens. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-reaction-to-caffeine/585944.md?page=1)