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Quitting Caffeine?

Authors: Ben K. <benk@tilde.team>

Date: 2021-03-24

I'm sure I wrote about this before, but quitting caffeine is hard. I usually don't want to do it, but sometimes I consider it for health reasons. Ten years ago I was very sick with a combination of anxiety and some digestive issue that could have been a stomach ulcer. The doctor put me on Nexium (acid blocker), and I quit caffeine cold turkey.

First of all, never quit caffeine cold turkey if you're used to having a lot. I don't know how much I was really consuming back then, but I was drinking too much strong coffee every day. What can I say, it was delicious. (That was when I was buying the freshest roasts and grinding the beans at home.)

After some months of that life went on, and I resumed caffeine (but not all that coffee). In the following years I lost weight, and that I thought that would be the last of my stomach acid problems. I was wrong!

Well, this year was a stressful year, and getting COVID-19 was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Not only was it frequent heartburn, but also being stuck with some strange discomfort in the upper abdomen, a sore throat, and the like. All of this started after I got COVID, and during the diease I had this chronic nausea as well.

Things are slowly getting better, but suspecting an ulcer I took an acid blocker again under the direction of my doctor. Six weeks on Prilosec, followed by a month of Pepcid, then halved the dose. I just started discontinuing the Pepcid this past week, and I took it every other day. When I got off completely, I felt that I was experiencing some rebound, although supposedly Pepcid is not supposed to do that.

So now it's day three of not taking it, and I feel much improved from yesterday. However, I feel the need to make some dietary changes, which has me looking at axing my (what I think is) very moderate coffee consumption. (It's basically a couple teaspoons of instant coffee a day.)

Acid reflux is a demoralizing condition. A lot of diseases are. I already don't eat meals hours before going to bed, though I could maybe lose a little more weight and exercise. COVID-19 is still screwing me over in other ways, since I can't lead a normal lifestyle. I lose exercise and vital stress relief by hardly going out, not being able to go to the pool (swimming is the only exercise I like), not going to school, and so on...

Hopefully this a temporary problem, chocked up to all the combinations of stressors, the pandemic lifestyle, and going off of the medication. Even so, this is a condition I'm prone to apparently, which means I have to take care always. If you're not careful you'll end up with fatal a cancer, the thought of which makes me feel like a certified hypochondriac. For now I just have to see if I can make it better, and if discomfort persists too long get a doctor to examine it. I'd hate to be on acid blockers long-term, but likely that won't be necessary. Also there's worse ways to live, I guess.

Going back to coffee, that is probably one factor, and tea is another. Tea seems to give me heartburn more than anything else, for some reason. I have to drink soemthing, so probably I'm about to switch to chamomile or something soothing. I'm also trying to be more strictly regular about my sleep times, which I feel have been too variable lately.

As for food, I'd like to eat at very regular times too, but that's hard for me usually. The good news is that Ramadan is coming up fast, which I observe by fasting every year. One of the benefits I get out of it is that I end up eating at exactly the same times every day, and I would be smart to get off of caffeine before hand to make the schedule change more tolerable.

Today I substited my morning cup of coffee with a cup of green tea. That seemed like a good way to go. Maybe after a week of that I can switch to herbal.