7 ms·

Everybody's physiology is different, but I drank a full pot of coffee every day, for about 15 years. After Getting Older™, I was noticing more and more effects

Everybody's physiology is different, but I drank a full pot of coffee every day, for about 15 years. After Getting Older™, I was noticing more and more effects that I didn't like, so I made the decision to (mostly) detox off caffeine using decaf beans. Cold turkey would have destroyed me. I went with the following schedule: * Week 1: 75% caffeinated/25% decaf beans * Week 2: 50% caf/50% decaf * Week 3: 25% caf/75% decaf * Week 4: 100% decaf At week 4, I entered a full failure mode I hadn't yet experienced, namely migraines that were untouchable by OTC medications. Only caffeine helped. I tried to get through the week to "be done" with the weening but couldn't. So... * Week 5: back up to 25% caf/75% decaf! * Weeks 6-12: decreasing caffeine by half each week (to the point I was measuring beans using my home scale). After week 12, I was able to go without caffeine, and now I drink 1 cup of coffee and, if I'm feeling wild, I'll occasionally get an espresso. My physiological dependence on caffeine was no joke, but I feel a heck of a lot less anxious and jittery after cutting it down to where I'm now at.

neutronicus 2mo ago
Did you try Excedrin? It has some caffeine in it. It does seem to be especially helpful relative to just Tylenol for me as a migraine sufferer. Specifically for helping to disperse the aura.
- jodacola 2mo ago
  That was the only OTC I avoided, specifically because I was trying to tightly control and titrate down the caffeine dose (granted, measuring beans isn't precise dosing, but I didn't want to blow my work out of the water by throwing some Excedrin into the mix).
- DANmode 2mo ago
  > disperse the aura. What’s this mean?
  - jodacola 2mo ago
    Migraine auras - the additional disturbances that can accompany the pain (or, in some cases be present without the pain) [0]. [0] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22131-migraine-aura https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22131-migrain...
    - DANmode 2mo ago
      Thank you!
      - antod 2mo ago
        I don't get migraines very often (once a year maybe), but the first aura was very strange not knowing what it was. For me they start out as a bright point of light then spreads out into an expanding shimmering arc of rainbow colors. Sometimes the vision inside the arc is ok, other times it is kinda missing. The headache usually comes on as the aura is fading out. Sometimes I get an aura without the migraine.
  - neutronicus 2mo ago
    Visual disturbance. I get a blind spot near the center of my vision that looks a bit like what you see when you rub your closed eyes. It gets large enough to mostly obscure faces and prevent reading
    - doubletwoyou 2mo ago
      I was going mad for a good chunk of time a while ago figuring out why those blind spots were forming, glad to see I’m not alone
drcongo 2mo ago
For about 8 years now I've been down to one caffeinated coffee per day, first thing in the morning. If I miss it, I have the start of a migraine by about 1pm. It's mad.
- vinc 2mo ago
  Yes completely! I started drinking one small but dense cup of coffee every work day just after lunch to avoid being sleepy after the meal two years ago, and this year I noticed that I wasn't feeling good during the weekend, then I noticed that if I drank a coffee after lunch I'd be normal. Skip forward a few months, I notice now that if for some reason I forget to drink my coffee after lunch I wake up the next day with a migraine, each time. I like the ritual of grinding my fresh grains and brewing my cup, but I think I'll move to decaf and a quick nap like I was doing before. The migraine is the proof of an addiction.
- Insanity 2mo ago
  I had to avoid caffeine for some time due to medical issues. I really missed the morning ritual of waking up slowly with a cup of coffee, so I replaced it with decaf coffee which satisfies the ritual part of my morning at least. Definitely a 'YMMV' thing and it wouldn't solve the headaches of course, but it at least makes the morning a bit nicer.
Obscurity4340 2mo ago
Seems like this would have been much easier if you used plain old caffeine pills at the denominations you wanted to work thru, easier to measure (split the tablets) and also removes the other pleasurable aspects like flavor of the coffee and pleasing aromas—those kind of subjective cues that compound the preference and addiction Isnt what you're doing now basically—what it would be called for almost any other drug—"kindling" or something?
- jodacola 2mo ago
  Possible, yeah. I still wanted to drink coffee, though - decaf. I enjoy it. So, went the long route.
- robocat 2mo ago
  Tapering down using Caffeine pills (nodōz) has been really effective for me multiple times in the past. I have found it tricky to find a good starting dose, and it gets a bit difficult to break tablets into very small amounts (1/10th pill) tapering down near the end. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417034 I would never try cold turkey again due to nasty headaches. I've done it linearly over some weeks, but if anyone has tried non-linear tapering I would be interested to know what worked for you.
  - vidarh 2mo ago
    You can get powder and a digital scale, and there are relatively low caffeine pills. Alternatively, things like dark chocolate might be easier to cut to small doses.
    - robocat 2mo ago
      Good idea. I didn't know about caffeine powder suppliments (for sports). Scales and gel-caps are something else I wouldn't think of without context.
  - cluckindan 2mo ago
    You can dissolve a known amount of caffeine into a known amount of liquid, and then partition the liquid. Caffeine dosage is strange, because a fraction of the regular dose can remove withdrawal symptoms.
lo_zamoyski 2mo ago
> now I drink 1 cup of coffee and, if I'm feeling wild, I'll occasionally get an espresso. FYI, unless we're talking double espresso, a typical shot of espresso contains less caffeine (up to half) than a typical cup of drip coffee.
- jodacola 2mo ago
  Yeah, double (and I realize now my original statement wasn’t clear: that’s an occasional espresso in addition to my daily single cup of coffee in the morning).
randallsquared 2mo ago
Hopefully you were using very specific decaf for which you knew the values. Decaf coffee beans in the US vary from nearly zero to 30 or 40% of regular. Various sites and articles claim that there's a legal requirement for 97% removal in the US, but others call that out as coffee myth.
cluckindan 2mo ago
You weaned yourself off caffeine, but dependence on the other psychoactives in coffee still remains.

neutronicus 2mo ago

Did you try Excedrin? It has some caffeine in it. It does seem to be especially helpful relative to just Tylenol for me as a migraine sufferer. Specifically for helping to disperse the aura.

jodacola 2mo ago
That was the only OTC I avoided, specifically because I was trying to tightly control and titrate down the caffeine dose (granted, measuring beans isn't precise dosing, but I didn't want to blow my work out of the water by throwing some Excedrin into the mix).
DANmode 2mo ago
> disperse the aura. What’s this mean?
- jodacola 2mo ago
  Migraine auras - the additional disturbances that can accompany the pain (or, in some cases be present without the pain) [0]. [0] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22131-migraine-aura https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22131-migrain...
  - DANmode 2mo ago
    Thank you!
    - antod 2mo ago
      I don't get migraines very often (once a year maybe), but the first aura was very strange not knowing what it was. For me they start out as a bright point of light then spreads out into an expanding shimmering arc of rainbow colors. Sometimes the vision inside the arc is ok, other times it is kinda missing. The headache usually comes on as the aura is fading out. Sometimes I get an aura without the migraine.
- neutronicus 2mo ago
  Visual disturbance. I get a blind spot near the center of my vision that looks a bit like what you see when you rub your closed eyes. It gets large enough to mostly obscure faces and prevent reading
  - doubletwoyou 2mo ago
    I was going mad for a good chunk of time a while ago figuring out why those blind spots were forming, glad to see I’m not alone

drcongo 2mo ago

For about 8 years now I've been down to one caffeinated coffee per day, first thing in the morning. If I miss it, I have the start of a migraine by about 1pm. It's mad.

vinc 2mo ago
Yes completely! I started drinking one small but dense cup of coffee every work day just after lunch to avoid being sleepy after the meal two years ago, and this year I noticed that I wasn't feeling good during the weekend, then I noticed that if I drank a coffee after lunch I'd be normal. Skip forward a few months, I notice now that if for some reason I forget to drink my coffee after lunch I wake up the next day with a migraine, each time. I like the ritual of grinding my fresh grains and brewing my cup, but I think I'll move to decaf and a quick nap like I was doing before. The migraine is the proof of an addiction.
Insanity 2mo ago
I had to avoid caffeine for some time due to medical issues. I really missed the morning ritual of waking up slowly with a cup of coffee, so I replaced it with decaf coffee which satisfies the ritual part of my morning at least. Definitely a 'YMMV' thing and it wouldn't solve the headaches of course, but it at least makes the morning a bit nicer.

Obscurity4340 2mo ago

Seems like this would have been much easier if you used plain old caffeine pills at the denominations you wanted to work thru, easier to measure (split the tablets) and also removes the other pleasurable aspects like flavor of the coffee and pleasing aromas—those kind of subjective cues that compound the preference and addiction Isnt what you're doing now basically—what it would be called for almost any other drug—"kindling" or something?

jodacola 2mo ago
Possible, yeah. I still wanted to drink coffee, though - decaf. I enjoy it. So, went the long route.
robocat 2mo ago
Tapering down using Caffeine pills (nodōz) has been really effective for me multiple times in the past. I have found it tricky to find a good starting dose, and it gets a bit difficult to break tablets into very small amounts (1/10th pill) tapering down near the end. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417034 I would never try cold turkey again due to nasty headaches. I've done it linearly over some weeks, but if anyone has tried non-linear tapering I would be interested to know what worked for you.
- vidarh 2mo ago
  You can get powder and a digital scale, and there are relatively low caffeine pills. Alternatively, things like dark chocolate might be easier to cut to small doses.
  - robocat 2mo ago
    Good idea. I didn't know about caffeine powder suppliments (for sports). Scales and gel-caps are something else I wouldn't think of without context.
- cluckindan 2mo ago
  You can dissolve a known amount of caffeine into a known amount of liquid, and then partition the liquid. Caffeine dosage is strange, because a fraction of the regular dose can remove withdrawal symptoms.

lo_zamoyski 2mo ago

> now I drink 1 cup of coffee and, if I'm feeling wild, I'll occasionally get an espresso. FYI, unless we're talking double espresso, a typical shot of espresso contains less caffeine (up to half) than a typical cup of drip coffee.

jodacola 2mo ago
Yeah, double (and I realize now my original statement wasn’t clear: that’s an occasional espresso in addition to my daily single cup of coffee in the morning).

randallsquared 2mo ago

Hopefully you were using very specific decaf for which you knew the values. Decaf coffee beans in the US vary from nearly zero to 30 or 40% of regular. Various sites and articles claim that there's a legal requirement for 97% removal in the US, but others call that out as coffee myth.

cluckindan 2mo ago

You weaned yourself off caffeine, but dependence on the other psychoactives in coffee still remains.