Caffeine and chocolate

I forgot to mention...caffeine raises homocysteine, which is why being able to tolerate it is not an excuse to go hog-wild.

Trif

Ok, here is the thing. 2 cups of coffe raise your cortisol level 33%, which is huge. It will beat up your adrenal gland to make it if u r marginal or you flat out may not be able. I used to drink 20 c/day (I think I was hypothyroid my whole life and certainly was extremely anemic so I survived on caffeine). When i got to be 50 i could not drink coffee anymore. Not only did it trash my blood pressure, but it tasted likesludge and would make me shakey etc. So then my blood pressure/panic-that-went-on-forever forced me to take DHEA and now I can drink coffee again. I doubt I could handle 20 c. but I can handle up to 4 c or so (usually I only drink 1-2 so don't know how high I could go). It is DEFINITELY an adrenal thing, but it is NORMAL. Your adrenal DHEA production peaks at age 30. And the amount of DHEA in your system governs how much stress (cortisol) u can tolerate. So...don't think of it as trying to fix something that is broken, think of it as Life Extension. I highly recomend bio-identical hormones (DHEA+pregnenolone). I don't know if taking adrenal hormone pills is another way to fix this (but I suspect it might be in which case u eed to be aware THIS IS HORMONE REPLACEMENT! In other words, be safe...read up about what to do to ward off cancer. I take the I3C/DIM cruciferous vegetable extract supplement from Life Extension among other things for warding off hormonal cancer. And I get hormone labs to be SURE).

Trif

I get a good effect from soft drinks like Pepsi and sweet iced tea. (But as I said, I don't want to drink them anymore.) I need a substitute that is healthier. I have not figured out hot tea. After the bad experience with too much caffeine, I have been decaffeinating by discarding the first 30 seconds. But then I don't get the good effect. Now I am trying to combine the two. Yesterday I used mostly decaffeinated tea leaves, but some tea leaves had caffeine. I only discarded the first 5 seconds or so. I hardly noticed but probably had a little effect. I'm going to try increasing the amount of caffeinated leaves.

Thanks for the suggestion for green tea.

Have you tried green tea? It has less caffeine than black and comes in many flavors.

If you have a favorite black tea, you can remove most of the caffeine. Put the teabag in a cup, pour just enough boiling water over it to cover it, and steep 30 seconds. Most of the caffeine will come out, but you will lose very little of the flavor. Discard the water and make a new cup of tea.

Some people say caffeine helps them. It is a vaso-constrictor so may help with OI in just the right amounts.

I do well on certain caffeinated drinks, if I take breaks from them, drinking them 10-20 times in a month. Must be the right level of caffeine for me (way less than the tea I had). The drinks have too many sweeteners, colorings, preservatives so I am trying to mix my own hot tea with the right level.

I couldn't handle any drink known for high caffeine levels, like coffee. One sip, maybe.

Chocolate has only a little caffeine, but has some other natural stimulant.

hope that you are feeling better...i love chocolate but try to hold back becasue of weight and headaches...

its sad that we have so little energy from being ill...ive tried the caffine pills...made me have migranes and made me really jittery so i wouldnt recommend that to anyone..

again hope you are feeling better and have more energy

Me neither. I think caffine is hard on the adrenal glands.

http://www.naturalnews.com/012352.html

love that cat face with it's tongue sticking out.

I can't handle much caffeine either. I get a migraine from the amount in coffee. Tea has a different effect for some reason, whether caffeinated or not it makes me very weak and exhausted for a long while afterwards, even the next day. I have some caffeine in cocoa but it is possible to over do that as well.

So tricky to be measured and moderate about absolutely everything!