Caffeine withdrawal – how long will this last?

I decided to see if it is coffee that is having a bad effect on my guts (you don’t want to know the details) so I stopped drinking it. That was this morning and now I feel like death – no energy and a headache. How long can I expect this nightmare to continue?

Or maybe it’s not that , and I’m just sick 🙁

Three weeks it’s taken each time I’ve thought it was a good idea

I’ve never got past 2 days. Hideous process. There are worse vices.

Pretty bad headache for a day or two after that started to improve, back to normal under a week for me.

I find its bad for 2-3 days, then it eases.

Depends how much you were drinking of course. Maybe cut down before quitting completely?

It lasts forever.

Have a coffee.

I’ve been over it in a couple of days each time I’ve give up. Ibuprofen helps. But you should be able to cut down to zero over time without too much difficulty, so long as you are honest and strict with yourself (ie don’t just make your coffees stronger and larger as you cut down the daiy number).

Three weeks it’s taken each time I’ve thought it was a good idea

Ouff. That’s not very encouraging. I’m rethinking this experiment ….

Yes, cut out caffeine, replace with drugs 🙂

Have a coffee.

That sorts it out for me.

I was knackered and useless for about four days when I stopped drinking caffeinated drinks. Cold turkey, grin and bear it but you’ll be shit to be around 😆

I’m now off caffeinated tea completely but I really enjoy the daily one cup of (caffeinated) coffee I allow myself with breakfast. Herbal teas or hot water otherwise.

Never realised it had withdrawal symptoms. Another thing to worry about!

I honestly think that trying to give up caffeine was harder than stopping smoking.
I went cold turkey from about 10-12 cups of tea a day. I basically felt like shit for about 2 weeks with banging headaches and feeling absolutely knackered by about 15:00 each afternoon. The third week things started getting a bit better.
I lasted a couple of months before I gradually started drinking tea again and now I’m back to where I started.

When I stopped smoking I just decided to stop one night and that was that. Felt a little off for a couple of days then that was the end of it. At least with the smoking I felt some improvement in my general health within a week or so, with caffeine there was nothing like that.

Caffeine is wicked I get headaches and other symptoms by mid afternoon if I miss my morning coffee . Simply put don’t stop it is not worth it by comparison no alcohol for dry January has been a doddle .

God no. I would kill people. Walked to tesco at 3am (4 miles total) just to get coffee.

1-2 days of headaches/feeling grumpy.

Proper hardcore headache about 24 hours, bit a dull woozy feeling headache 48 ish

How much coffee are you lot drinking to be getting those effects? I used to drink about 4 cups a day when I was at work, but none at the weekends and never felt any ill effects. Stopped a few weeks prior to doing the Fred Whitton and again, didn’t seem to have any effects either.

DrJ, could you cut down then stop? Might make the withdrawls easier to manage and help find out if there’s any amount of coffee causing the issue or just too much.

m0rk – Member

Yes, cut out caffeine, replace with drugs 🙂

Which type? 😆

Couple of days at most IMHO. I went from three double espressos a day to nothing (well, redbush tea) and noticed no withdrawal symptoms apart from the fact that I stopped getting heartburn.

Redbush tea behaves exactly like normal tea. You can even add milk to it despite what the box says.

you don’t wanna go cold turkey, best to cut down over time like with booze

OP,

Are you sure you are drinking coffee and not coffee laced with something else?

I really do not understand how you can be addicted to coffee. 😯

I drink Robusta coffee since age 6 … Yes, used to be One Litre a day from age 6 to 8.

Now I drink at least 1 cup a day of Arabica coffee but if I don’t drink them I don’t actually remember what I am missing really. Just normal like nothing happens … 😮

I really do not understand how you can be addicted to coffee

Science ?

More specifically Biology.

Have a read, it’s a large but mainly very interesting subject.

I decided to see if it is coffee that is having a bad effect on my guts (you don’t want to know the details)

Actually I do! I’m coming around to the idea that it gives me the “wildies” as they say. I get about 20 minutes then all breaks loose, literally bang my head on the ceiling shortly after entering trap 2.

Your symptoms sound a lot like Cats Aids and not the good type either….

nealglover – Member

I really do not understand how you can be addicted to coffee

Science ?
More specifically Biology.
Have a read, it’s a large but mainly very interesting subject. [/quote]

Interesting …

I gave up coffee at the start of December, I probably used to drink a bit too much and just decided to quit one day. As most of the comments I would say a couple of weeks before everything is normal, but the worst symptom disappear after a few days. For me I got headaches in the afternoon/evening and tired at strange times of the day. I found going for a bike ride helped with the headaches.

Since giving up I have found I feel much more awake in the morning. Previously I would never feel properly awake until I had a cup.

Think I might be overdosed or stock up with so much caffeine in my body that I can go without for many years … 😮

See you might want to start drinking it from young …

edit: my body fat could be caffeine … 😆

Stopping coffee has never been a big issue for me, despite having a deeply addictive personality, and having suffered muchly through other stuff (smoking for instance).

Yeah, there’s a craving, but I’ve never had any serious withdrawals from it.

Nothing worse than what I get from actually drinking it…

Think I might be overdosed or stock up with so much caffeine in my body that I can go without for many years …
See you might want to start drinking it from young …

Seriously.

Science.

Have a read 🙄

I’ve given up the caffeine. Lately too as trying to see if it stops the cramp I suffer from. Have switched to decaff feeling a wee bit two twitchy but no sore heads or anything. Drink about 10 cups a day 😯

DrJ

I weaned myself off caffeine almost completely in the space of two weeks in September / October last year on advice of a training company while gearing up for exams.

I went from 8 cups a day on a bad day to one cup a day over two weeks with a big drop right at the start and zero for the days of my actual exams.

I miss the taste but not the effects on my body and the side effects if I can call them that lasted just a few days of the two weeks.

Coffee and tea are still two of my favourite drinks but I rarely drink more than two cups a day now and I now realise just how detrimental they are to good health if not kept under control.

Edit…fruit infusions are a poor substitute have a glass of water instead

DrJ, I have just done the same thing for (possibly) the same reasons.

I usually drink 3 – 5 mugs of black Aeropress filter per day, which led to, well… er… erm, well…..you know 😳

I cut coffee out completely for a while and it was like a switch had been flipped, everything back to normal (such as it was).

I didn’t get caffeine withdrawal headaches (IIRC it’s thought that the cause of the, er, symptoms, is not the caffeine per se, but something else in the coffee – IME decaf filter also has similar effects) but I did feel completely and utterly knackered despite substituting it for tea.

In the end I have reintroduced coffee just to alleviate the constant tiredness, but try and limit it to two mugs a day, and that seems a relatively good compromise.

Jakester – sounds familiar. In fact drinking tea seems to not lead to the same … results (in fact cramping and rapid exit to the “facilities”) so maybe it is not, as you say, caffeine, but some other feature of coffee. We will see!

Good luck!

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/caffeine

Also, http://en.ilovecoffee.jp/posts/view/175

Anyone want to save me a google and let me know the effects of Caffeine – apart from being AWESOME, that mean it’s a good idea to quit it?

My diet coke intake is mental, but I’ve never been given a good reason to quit, bar the bloody cost – my GP’s no use, he keeps cans of the stuff in his drawer!

My diet coke intake is mental

Tooth erosion should be a big enough reason to cut down on Diet Coke, without worrying about the caffeine.

A really fun experiment if you want to see the effects of caffeine. Sneakily start replacing ( over a week) the office coffee jar with decaffinated coffee. Then for two weeks keep topping up with wholly decaffinated…… Then replace the jar with strong insanity coffee or something really dark and heavy. You will laugh at the effects! 🙂