<p>-Exactly the case with me. I used to have one small cut or regular coffee every morning before 8 am. Ended up with very uncomfortable irregular heart beat that lasted for several days. Went on-line to research. Found out that it might be caused by coffee. Limited my intake to 3 cups / week and have been fine since then. Otherwise coffee affects me very positively, clears head, energy goes up and I love the tase and smell of it. But I also consume more than average amount of dark chocolate (85%) that most people cannot even tolerate. That could have put me over edge with heart beat. I am not giving up my favorite chocolate though.</p>
<p>^ Caffeine is also in many otc migraine medications. I had to cut my 1/2 pot coffee habit for a number of reasons. We eventually went to 1/2 Caffeine blend. You can get ‘two for one’ and enjoy a second cup on Sunday morning. :)</p>
<p>I’m sensitive to stimulants as well. When I was in college the first time, I took some No Doze to study for finals. The next day, I felt like a nervous wreck and also had a bad headache. I took some extra strength Excedrin, not realizing it contained caffeine. I ended up in the local ER with SVT and borderline panic attack.</p>
<p>I knew after that incident to just stay away from anything that increases heart rate or BP. When I was a young professional working in the big city, cocaine was all the rage. I had no trouble “just saying no.” I knew if I ever did it even once, I’d be the one in the newspaper the next day: “Young professional dies of heart attack after cocaine use.” No thanks.</p>
<p>After giving birth to a child who NEVER would take a nap, I began drinking coffee in the morning to get through the day. But one cup does the trick. If I have two, that’s too much.</p>
<p>^I cannot use even regular Excedrin, I get immediate addiction that manifest itself in getting headache at exactly the same time next day (very weird, I know). Otherwise, I do not have regular headaches, very few instances / year. I do not even remember when it happened last time, must be many months ago.</p>
<p>“But one cup does the trick” - Agree with this one also. I wish I can have it every day, makes me feel very good.<br>
Looks like we have the same sensitivity to caffeine.</p>
<p>If you are super sensitive to the caffeine, the Excedrin reaction isn’t really that weird. It may be a withdrawal headache. It happens when regular coffee drinkers don’t get that coffee in the morning. It happens a lot with jetlag because your body thinks it’s time for a ‘fix’ and you are trying to sleep.<br>
-Spoken from the mouth of a reformed caffeine junkie.</p>
<p>I wish one cup would do the trick for me. One of my empty-nest goals is to ramp down my caffeine addiction. In the summer, I’m doing a 16 oz coffee in the morning, an iced tea at lunch and another 16 oz coffee in the afternoon. In the winter I can usually skip the caffeine with lunch, but I still need the daily quart of coffee.</p>
<p>nightchef, you might want to consider the half-caff. I like really dark roast and Wegman’s makes a decent blend. If you have to cut it out completely then this is not going to help, but if you are looking to cut down, but would still like to have two cups of coffee, this is worth a try.</p>
<p>I have been almost caffeine free for about 25 years, although if out to lunch with friends I would have a diet coke or ice tea. About a year ago I decided I needed an afternoon pick up and seem to now crave a large ice tea in the afternoon. I must drive through McDonald’s a couple of times a week for the $1 large tea; especially while the weather has been so hot.</p>
<p>I can not have caffeine after about 3:00pm; I am not able to fall asleep at night if I do. While my husband is a diet coke junkie, we only buy caffeine free for the house and only make decaf ice tea and coffee. While I have always allowed the kids to drink sodas at home, it has always been caffeine free. They swear they can taste a difference between the caffeine free and with caffeine.</p>
I might give it another try. In the past I have never found decaf coffee I can stand to drink. The taste makes me nauseous. Some of the higher-end brands are better, but they all have at least a hint of that weird off-flavor. It reminds me of the taste of a cigarette when you accidentally light it from the wrong end (now there’s an addiction I’m glad I can talk about in the past tense!).</p>
<p>Large iced tea from McD’s … if it was sugar free, be aware that aspartame can cause some ppl to have problems. My H feels brain fog/ high/ not good with just a few sips of aspartame containing drink. </p>
<p>This summer I had the odd experience of my first case of hives after drinking one of those sugar fresh squeezed lemon aide drinks. Made me wonder what was on the outside of that (probably unwashed) lemon.</p>
<p>Here’s raising a glass of water to summer! My challenge is remembering that beer is also diuretic. /sigh</p>
<p>I can have only 3 small cups regular / week before 8am and some decaf any time before 2pm. Otherwise, forget about sleeping, even my regular 3 - 5 hours / night. (If I sleep more than 5 - 6 hours, I feel really bad, down, no energy with very likely morning headache.)</p>
<p>I drink a lot of green tea every day, but now and then switch to black (if green is unavailable). I can do one large cup of black tea with no problem, but if I drink another, I really notice the effects of the extra caffeine (and I’m pretty used to caffeine – addicted, actually), so it could be that one large dose of it, for someone not used to caffeine could cause you to feel quite weird and jittery (not sure what you mean by <em>stroke-like</em>).</p>
<p>This doesn’t have caffeine in it- but I was worried about my D on her trip last year, because she gets heat exhaustion in Seattle in the summer and she was in southern Asia.</p>
<p>However, it was mentioned to me, that they recommend coconut water which is available every where, and I saw that they carried it in my local grocery as well ( but packaged. The coconuts we get in us have been pasturized)</p>