hey everyone.

have any of you guys suffered from caffeine withdrawal?
if so, how bad was it? could you concentrate and do your work?

i was abroad for a while and I came back into the US a week ago, and have been plagued with constant dull headaches.
one of my friends said that it could be caffeine withdrawal, which makes sense given the fact that I drank a lot of coffee until I left for the US.
the headache lasts almost all day.... i want to believe that its a combination of caffeine withdrawal and jetlag... but i slept to my alarm today so i feel its just caffeine withdrawal.

now im afraid to resume my regular coffee drinking. if i get this type of withdrawal every time i quit coffee for a few days, thats a problem.
would drinking decaf help?

help...

After an extended period of time regularly drinking coffee and sodas, I sometimes begin to feel, for lack of a better explanation, "over-caffeinated" and stop (or cut way back on) drinking caffeinated drinks for several days. The first two or three days after stopping usually includes a headache. Most of the time it doesn't affect my ability to function... much.

I've mixed regular and decaf to different degrees in order to vary the caffeine and had fairly good results, but it was a little more of a hassle than I wanted to deal with.

I get headaches and extremely cranky.

I remember in my 2nd year at Uni I went through a phase of getting really evil headaches if I didn't have at least one coffee a day. They used to come on particularly badly when I was at the gym. That was back in the days of instant coffee though. Since I got into 'proper' coffee i haven't had the same problem - I can go days without coffee and still not get the headaches, but that might be because I don't drink so much anymore: only 2, occasionally 3 doubles a day. Any more tends to OD me

What worked for me was to slowly reduce the amount I was drinking (over the course of weeks and months) and to make sure I was getting enough water every day... that way you won't get such bad withdrawal when you miss a few days.

This might interest you

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6422279.stm

On occasion yes and no. Perhaps I just don't notice it if I am really busy or am supplementing usual coffee intake with soda or tea. I never get the "jitters" from caffeine and it does not affect my ability to sleep. If I stopped caffeinated beverages completely, I am sure that I would have a more of a reaction. I have done so on occasion and felt sluggish and had a dull headache off and on for a day or two.

When I used to drink primarily drip coffee, I would get the nastiest headaches if I cut the caffeine.

Now that I am primarily an espresso based drink drinker, not so much. I put it down to a smaller average daily caffeine intake from better beans and the extraction process.

I sometimes skip coffee when traveling simply because I would rather have no coffee than lousy coffee. There's a chance of a mild headache in the late morning. Any caffeine intake however small negates the effect (e.g., piece of dark chocolate, half a diet coke).

I hate to say this but I used to average 15 cans of soda an afternoon at work besides my pot of coffee at home before going in. I occasionally have been known to have an entire 2-liter of Mountain Dew in one sitting (about 15 minutes) so you can see my affinity for caffeine. However I have really cut back these days (you can't drink like that and not shorten you life or impact your health) and have gone to 100% diet.

Now a days about 6 cans of soda a day and maybe a mug or two of coffee depending on my schedule is my average. So I still like my caffeine but I have gone days without it with no real affects other then that terrible drowsy/groggy feeling (man I hate that).

Honestly, it really depends.

On days when I had to work until 3am, I'd start to get a really massively painful headache right around midnight... when everything closes, and there's no coffee in sight. Those times were horrible, and they only came when I didn't have some coffee before going to work.

The catch, is that I've noticed that it only ever happens late at night. I can go an entire day with no withdraw effects if I'm in bed close to midnight.

Like Dan, I'll often go without coffee rather than drink bad coffee. I usually keep some painkillers in my bag when I travel, though... just in case.

If I'm in an inexplicable bad mood, coffee always seems to cheer me up, but I'm not entirely sure that's caffeine, or even drug, related. It might just be because coffee makes me happy.

Like Jason I have had many a time where a great coffee makes my entire day. (Yesterday it was a City roasted Mexican Oaxaca via French Press)