Meme: Screenshot of microblog post by @alanjack replying to @fotchi.
Caption: I still don't know why part of autistic/adhd diagnosis isn't putting you in a room with someone already diagnosed and seeing how quickly you bond.
Just sounds like caffeine addiction. I used to be able to drinks pot of coffee and then go to sleep. Then health issues caused me to give up all caffeine for several years and now if I have half a cup im wired for hours...
True, but I never drink coffee and could drink one right now and go sleep. The same when I was prescribed methylphenidate, straight to sleep. A non ADHD brain would be going 100mph.
AuDHD is a big bag of symptoms that everyone pulls from a random amount of times, it's perfectly possible to pull enough symptoms to get diagnosed with ADHD yet simply not have gotten the one that makes caffeine work differently on you.
i don't mean "being able to fall asleep", i mean that caffeine actively makes you tired, because that's how stimulants work for most ADHD people: rather than actually stimulate, it brings you back to base level and thus lets you be tired.
I know some people are "caffeine addicted" but I genuinely don't know how the fuck people do it.
I drink a cup of coffee a day, 16oz, sometimes there's also an energy drink in the mix, on some really serious days I have a headache or migraine and an Excedrin adds a little more in the mix.
One day I made a full pot of coffee and decided to attempt to consume the entire thing over the course of the day. I felt like my heart was trying to escape from my chest and that I was soon going to die.
An 8oz cup of coffee only has like 75-100mg of caffeine in it. With your 16oz cup plus an energy drink plus an Excedrin, that would be like ~400-500mg of caffeine. Assuming a typical drip coffee maker that can make 12 cups, you're looking at a total of like ~1000-1200mg of caffeine, double or triple your estimated daily amount. So it's kinda no wonder you felt wired that day. Extreme, sudden spikes in your stimulant intake will do that.
see this is the thing: i can take a 200mg caffeine pill in the middle of the day and forget i've done so, it has basically no effect whatsoever, neither positive nor negative.
The only actual reliable effect caffeine has on me is enabling me to get out of bed before noon, so that's the only thing i use it for.
That about sums up how I used to feel which caused me to stop consuming caffeine. When I could hear my own pulse while in a public place, I knew my blood pressure was a problem.
When you gave up caffeine did you experience rebound insomnia?
I gave up caffeine a month ago on my neurologists orders and it's been easy, no obvious withdrawal symptoms, no cravings, I just replaced all my tea and coffee and redbull with herbal tea and lemonade.
But I have not gotten more than 3 hours of consecutive sleep in this month, and I'm missing the relaxation and quiet that a refreshing 9pm redbull used to offer, I've got plenty of other relaxing rituals, but none so easy as just drinking coffee.
I started drinking coffee at 15 and religiously relishing redbulls at 21. Now in my 30s, this is the first time I've had true insomnia symptoms.
My mother has been an insomniac her whole life, my dad is narcoleptic, I was previously diagnosed with N24CRD and my brother has DSPS, so I come from a family of fucked up sleepers, but this is a new symptom set for me and it appears directly related to giving up caffeine.
I'm hoping it's just an adjustment period and my brain will sort itself out and get some sleep soon.
I did not have that issue. I actually overslept A LOT when on caffeine, I think I just wasn't getting very restful sleep so I would sleep for 20-30 hours if I did not set any alarms. When I got off caffeine I started going to bed a earlier (still a "night owl" but going to bed at like 1 or 2 am instead of 5 or 6am) and sleeping without alarms gets me 10ish hours. I used to regularly sleep entirely through my "weekends" off work... Life was very stressful without any usable free time.
That's me in my normal rhythm of substance abuse with caffeine.
It might be that.
Then again, the funny thing about caffeine is that I can go without some for weeks as long as I'm not expected to work. Longest I've gone without was a 12 week, almost 3 month streak. The coffee I had in my kitchen went bad.
i geniunely don't understand why so many people immediately jump to it sounding like addiction, since when does caffeine addiction make it so taking caffeine makes you tired? Surely the symptom of caffeine addiction (or withdrawal, rather) is that not getting caffeine makes you tired?
It's because you mentioned the daily healthy dosis of an adult, which are multiple cups, and mention falling asleep. By failing to clarify that you mentioned that dosage of caffeine as the cause of the sleep, my assumption lead to the expectation that the sleep comes DESPITE the caffeine. Hence the substance abuse comment.
Also, one can abuse a substance without an addiction.
But yeah, sometimes I too fall asleep because of coffee, not despite coffee. It's mostly when I pick it back up after a week or so, but not always.