Since stopping cold turkey all drinks with caffiene (i used to be a 2-4 can a day person) my stomach issues seem to have went away almost completely.... i stopped last sunday. also my muscle twitches arent nearly as often. the only symptom remaining is leg achiness and feeling rly tired on the morning not rested.
I wonder if it was the caffiene or the high fructose corn syrup/other ingredients.
Posted by Hoosiers51 (Member # 15759) on :
If you were drinking soda, just keep in mind soda is REALLY bad for you....so I wouldn't be surprised if it was hurting you.
Soda leaches minerals from your body. It is very acidic. Supposedly the carmel coloring (an additive) slows down your metabolism, which could make you feel sluggish.
So you are doing a GREAT thing for yourself by stopping it. Hope stopping drinking it helps a lot. You are doing your body a world of good, so congrats.
Even the "diet" soda is bad for you....to anyone else reading this.
Posted by XxDarkEuphoriaxX (Member # 21420) on :
i dont do diet at all its nasty....
i cant give up soda completely, no waaay. Just the caffiene free stuff for now... i like this stuff called "jarritos" it is a mexican soda with natural sugar and it is caffiene free. i am drinking that instead of "ski" which is like mt. dew only worse.
Posted by XxDarkEuphoriaxX (Member # 21420) on :
idk why this is, but it seems like since i stopped caffiene i have been having some sort of a headache every single day? what is up with that....
Posted by AnnaL (Member # 18464) on :
Caffiene-withdrawal headaches are very common. They should go away as your body accustoms itself to going without.
I had a friend in college who was so coffee-addicted that she'd wake up in the middle of the night with a headache; only after she'd had more coffee could she go back to sleep!
If you like soda and want to make it healthier, you could mix fruit juice with some soda water for a nice spritzer.
Posted by Blackstone (Member # 9453) on :
Unfortunately, very few sodas are made the way they used to be that originally gave rise to their popularity - with natural flavorings, real sugar, and nothing else! Today there are deleterious chemicals such as high fructose corn syrup (inhibits leptin production which tells your brain "stop eating, you're full" and has a number of other issues) artificial colors and flavors (Many shown to be endocrine disruptor), preservatives, and artificial sweeteners (Also endocrine disrupting in many cases. Splenda for instance, is no calorie because it bonds the sugar molecule to a chlorine molecule!).
All that nasty stuff is far worse for you than just naturally occurring caffeine or cane sugar (used in moderation, of course!), provided you don't have any sort of sensitivity or other issue.
I suggest buying soda from organic grocery, online, or from outside the country. There are many USDA Organic certified sodas, but you won't find them at the 7-11 or local market.
Posted by nefferdun (Member # 20157) on :
Caffeine in coffee blocks the absorbtion of magnesium, B vitamins and zinc. It can cause anxiety attacks when you drink too much of it. As people with lyme are deficient in those minerals, we should limit our caffeine if we have any at all. I have one cup of black tea a day. But green tea has caffeine and we are told it is an excellent antioxidant.
Posted by Hoosiers51 (Member # 15759) on :
As far as the withdrawl headaches....
You could stop "cold turkey" and just put up with the headaches, etc. Some people find it easier to quit something by cutting it out completely.
Or, you could just do lower levels of caffeine (like a cup of green or black tea) to take the edge off the headaches, while you get used to not having it.
Personally, I bet if you drank a cup or two of green tea per day, that level of caffeine would be so low that it wouldn't be as big of a deal with the mineral/vitamin B issue. But you would still have that little bit of caffeine to get you through.
And it might be better for your body to get your boost from the small amount of caffeine in tea, than the boost you get from the sugar in non-caffeinated soda.
(if you brew it yourself with tea bags you get more of the healthy substances than the bottled tea)
Hope that helps!
Posted by LightAtTheEnd (Member # 24065) on :
I have given up soda. Several times, LOL.
I finally made it stick a couple of years ago, and now I drink water and decaf green tea.
Every time I stopped, I would get headaches for a few days. When I would be mostly off caffeine but then would have a big soda once a week, I would get headaches once a week.
After I quit and stayed off for several days, the headaches and the morning sleepiness went away and didn't keep coming back any more, as long as I didn't cheat.
It seems that diet soda is even more addictive than regular soda, and also causes people to gain more weight, according to studies.
I am now not allowed to have sugar, caffeine, or artificial sweeteners and feel much better when I don't. But I recently went to a coffee shop that doesn't sell anything that I'm able to consume.
I managed by keeping a bottle of water within easy reach at all times, so when I got thirsty I would drink that automatically, instead of going to the kitchen for a soda.
I stopped buying sodas at the store, so if I caved at home I would have to walk a couple of blocks to a vending machine to get one.
I keep teabags for decaf green tea on my desk at work and in my purse, and a teacup on my desk, and I go to the break room and make tea every couple of hours. You could also drink herbal tea in all sorts of flavors.
When I wanted cold drinks, I used an ice tea maker to make a pitcher full of cold tea and take it with me in a big thermos. The sweet tea you buy at fast food places has the same bad chemicals in it as the soda products, like high fructose corn syrup.
If you can't bring yourself to do without the sweetness, tea with honey is better than soda with sugar.
I have blood sugar issues, and I have found that caffeine makes my blood sugar elevated even when it's not a sugared drink.
Good luck! Getting off the caffeine initially is the hardest part, which you've already done.
Posted by Hoosiers51 (Member # 15759) on :
I am not affiliated with this site in any way, but check out:
I LOVE their teas. At first it seems expensive, but then when you realize you're getting 50 tea bags per tin...(sometimes it's 36)...that's a LOT for $9! So it's actually way cheaper per cup than soda.
The flavors are what got me addicted to tea. I like the Honey Ginseng Green tea (my first love), the Spring Cherry Green, the Fair Trade Cranberry Blood Orange black tea....I could go on and on. They sell some of them at Panera, if you want to try them.
Okay two more good ones I have to mention--Ginger Peach Black, and the Passionfruit Papaya black I've never tried but I have a family member who's obsessed with that one.
Whenever I would have a rough day, I'd buy a new tea flavor at the health food store (they carried the full Republic of Tea line). Some of them are just so-so, but some of them are so good I can't stop drinking it!
(ps--that Strawberry Chocolate one on their home page isn't very good, tried that last week)