Bye bye, coffee

[City of Mills]

Tomorrow is going to be a little rough, as it will be the first day of the rest of my life without coffee. I have to say goodbye to caffeine. After having another bout of gastrointestinal distress, I have to face the reality that coffee is a stimulant which is not helping, and may very well be contributing to my increasing discomfort. I'm so sad! I couldn't even throw away the half-bag of coffee beans I have left over, I just smelled the bag wistfully as I imagined a sleepy day tomorrow with an obligatory dull headache.

:sigh: :donut:

[Critters2]

1. Best of luck. I can never get past the headache.

I'll be thinking of you!

[mainegreen]

2. Ouch. That's a whole lotta suck right there.

Good luck.

[Lionel Mandrake]

3. If you want to avoid the headache,

Drink a little less each day for several days.

[noamnety]

5. Seconded

Why put yourself through the withdrawals? They can be horrific. This isn't like smoking - you can taper off by mixing in decaf bit by bit, and when you've broken the caffeine addiction, THEN stop cold turkey.

[soleiri]

4. I gave up the coffee about a year ago

I was drinking a 12 oz. cup a day. I did 1/2 reg 1/2 decaf for a while. Then I switched to chai tea. Now I'm drinking red chai, green or herbal tea. If I'm out, I'll occasionally have a cup of chai tea.

I do feel better now, but I did feel like crap for about a month. I have endometriosis and caffeine is one of those no-no substances. I also hated feeling like I HAD to have coffee in the morning.
Good luck! it does get better.

[Lex]

6. I gave up most white carbs and the gastrointestinal distress went away

for me. I got to keep my coffee in the morning too.

Maybe that just worked for me, but giving up white carbs (sugar, bread, pasta, etc.) enabled me to go from constantly popping Tums and Pepcid AC all day and almost giving up coffee, to having virtually no GI distress whatsoever.

[Chan790]

7. I may know of a solution for that...

look for decaf coffees (probably at a high-end coffee shop) decaffeinated with what is known as the Swiss-Water Process (or SWP). They're the only decafs I've ever had that don't taste different. For an explanation: http://www.swisswater.ca/decaf/process or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeination#Swiss_water_process

One can make decaf tea from regular teabags in one's own kitchen using a similar methodology. Take a caffeinated tea-bag, steep it in hot water for 10 seconds. Remove teabag, dump the old water and re-steep in new fresh hot water.

In both cases, a negligible amount of caffeine is left behind. You still want to moderate your coffee consumption though, even decaf can cause some GI stress.