I’ve been told to lay off caffeine, apart from one very strong cup of coffee a day I don’t think I do caffeine. However I read that some companies put caffeine into products to make them addictive. Is that true? If so which products? If not is my paranoia due to lack of caffeine:p
Also my friends say I’ll suffer but don’t say how.
Have any Dopers given up caffeine and if so what are the withdrawal symptoms like?
I hate being coffee free:(
Once a long long time ago I had to give up caffeine due to a drug I needed to take. I drank a LOT of coke at the time - upwards of 6 cans a day. Since I had to get off it as quickly as possible so I could start the medication, I had to go cold turkey. The worst headache I ever had for the next 4 days. The irony is that the medication I was waiting to take was a preventative drug for my migraines. Turned out that one didn’t work and the one we finally settled on was fine with caffeine so my life went back to normal.
As for sources of caffeine, the biggest non obvious culprit is chocolate, and thanks to good labeling you can confirm all your regular purchases fairly quickly. I have noticed it in some kinds of gum, and watch labels on all drinks, they even put it in water (but they’re not hiding it, it’s more marketing than actual effective supplementation). In Canada we have weird laws about putting caffeine in non brown pop which is why Mountain Dew in Canada used to be caffeine free. Now they call it a dietary supplement and put whatever they want in it. Gotta love loopholes.
I quit cold turkey before I got pregnant with my firstborn. I had the most monstrous headache for 3 or 4 days and just generally felt really, really sluggish mentally and physically. However, once I managed to get through the first week, I actually felt slightly more alert without caffeine than I did with it. Unfortunately, I like the taste of coffee and decaf has a bitter aftertaste, so I’m back in the habit again.
As a general rule, unless a soda is specifically labeled as caffeine free, it’s a good idea to suspect that it has caffeine in it. Even clear lemonlime sodas sometimes have caffeine in them. Some root beers do, and some don’t. I know that Barq’s does. Same goes for orange and red sodas…some have it and some don’t. So read labels carefully.
Unless you’re actually allergic to caffeine, I don’t think that you need to worry about chocolate, unless of course you’re consuming ten pounds of it a day.
Headaches.
I broke myself of the caffeine habit to control IBS, insomnia and anxiety. First I switched from Pepsi to Sprite, then I switched from Sprite to Izze carbonated fruit drinks (so tasty), then I switched from Izze to caffeine-free tea. Now I drink mostly water.
Good luck!
I was off of caffeine for almost a year about. . .four years back, I think. I’d gotten really bad, intense food poisoning, and the kicker was, because I couldn’t keep anything down, as soon as the vomiting was done, the headache set it.
I went cold turkey. It was hell for a couple of days, and then I was fine. I didn’t miss the caffeine at all. Not even a little. I drank water and diet lemonade.
The only thing is, I like Diet Coke. I really like Diet Coke. And that was eventually my downfall. I like Diet Coke too much. And tea (Irish or English Breakfast, hot). And the decaf is just a little off, taste-wise. Though lately, I’ve been drinking Vault Zero at work, and I really should stop; it’s making me jittery. Sigh.
Thanks for the info! I gave up coffee on tuesday and have endured a headache for the last two days. I never get headaches so suspected withdrawal.
I want coffee 
<And the decaf is just a little off, taste-wise.>
Sorry not sure how to quote on this forum.
Decaf in my opinion is grown in the area of Satan’s haemorrhoids and therefore not to be consumed by mere mortals.
Let me get this straight. You’ve given up one cup of coffee per day, and this is causing several days worth of headaches?
I had a similar thread earlier in GQ, so I thought I’d link it so you can see the answers there, too.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=563736&highlight=caffeine
Since you aren’t completely off, I don’t think you’d have any appreciable effects from even the caffeine-free products that I think contain at least trace amounts.
And I gave it up for anxiety reasons. It never really messed with my sleep–if anything, it was easier to sleep back then, as the grogginess caused by the caffeine wearing off would help me sleep. It just made me jittery, and I stopped getting any sort of euphoric reaction to counter that.
Withdrawal: I did it carefully and didn’t have any, but, in the past, it was always headaches. Just go slow, and you’ll be fine. Try mixing a small bit of decaff into your coffee, or just drinking a small amount less.
I agree on the headache thing. I had a heart attack in December, and found that afterwards, caffeine was giving me heart flutters. I cut out the caffeine (switched from Diet Coke to Caffeine-Free Diet Coke). Dull, annoying headache for four days (on a scale of 1-10, I’d rank it a 4), and very tired. Once I got past that, I didn’t really miss it. I did have a regular Diet Coke on Wednesday at dinnertime (nothing else available) - no heart flutters with just one, but it took me until 4 am to fall asleep.
You could always just take aspirin for the headaches. Except that most aspirin and other pain relieving products contain caffeine as an accelerator.
Wouldn’t they have to list that as an active ingredient as well? I don’t take in any caffeine due to caffeine sensitivity, and the biggest culprit for me is coffee. Chocolate is well-tolerated in moderate amounts (the moderation is for my waistline, not the caffeine/theobromine in it). I don’t drink regular black tea, but green tea is okay for me (again in moderate amounts). Coke is on the bubble - I can drink almost a whole can of Coke without getting the jitters, but again, I moderate that due to the sugar.
Most pain relievers do not contain caffeine. Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, Bayer and their generic equivalents are caffeine free. Some products, such as Goody’s Headache Powder, I believe, contain it.
Why would you have to give up caffeine? Genuinely curious.
This is one of my worst nightmares.
If a product has caffeine added, it will say it in the ingredient list.
Many say it right on the front label, such as Anacin and Excedrin.
“most”? Only Excedrin, as far as I know.
I have never seen Ibuprofen or Tylenol with caffeine as an added ingredient, except as a separately labeled “Migraine” product. I don’t know anyone who takes aspirin regularly (except the mini dose for a heart condition)
My husband used to chuckle at my caffeine addiction (with headaches when withdrawal starts), until he complained of a day-long headache. On a day when he’d had to fast for a morning blood draw, and hadn’t had his usual cup of coffee. Yup, coffee cured it. Some people get addicted easier than others.
Heart palpitations are not a fun experience and now a single cup of caffeinated coffee will give me palpitations for several hours.
I cut caffeine cold turkey. The closest I now come to it is making a pot of coffee for mrAru in the morning.
I really miss coffee. Decaff tastes like it was made using a jock strap as a filter. I have tried everything from folgers up through gevalia and green mountain and there is no palatable decafe coffee in existance =(