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Do small doses of caffeine help energy levels?

drob31

Senior Member
Messages
1,487
I'm just curious of other peoples experience. I seem to have decent benefits from small doses of caffeine. I'm not sure if it's the AMPK activation or something else (adrenaline/cortisol), but it seems to turn the lights on.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
Not for me. It just encourages me to push past my energy limits. Yeah, I think I can do more when I'm on caffeine, but my body disagrees.

Caffeine might work as a mental stimulant, which some PWME need, rather than as an energy-increaser... if you know what I mean. For some PWME, mental stimulants like Ritalin are a big help. Not so much for others.
 

pogoman

Senior Member
Messages
292
Coffee and caffeine pills have helped me very much the past couple years.
Toward the end of a bad work week I'm drinking a couple coffees during the day to maintain energy and keep the brainfade away.

Its interesting I rarely have acid reflux either since starting the methylation and mito supplements last year.
Several years ago I stopped prescription Prilosec cold turkey and after things settled down I rarely get attacks, coffee used to be a almost certain trigger in the old days.
 

Effi

Senior Member
Messages
1,496
Location
Europe
@drob31 I feel better cognitively when I drink coffee. I can't do more physically, but at least I feel slightly more human, like my thoughts are a bit more clear. I think caffeine has a different effect on different people, I think there's a genetic factor to this but I can't remember where I read that. Dr Myhill talks about the possible benefits of coffee too (here).
Dr Myhill website said:
AMP can be recycled, but slowly. Interestingly, the enzyme which does this (cyclic AMP) is activated by caffeine! So the perfect pick-me-up for CFS sufferers could be a real black organic coffee with a teaspoon of D-ribose!
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
I have 3 cups of tea spread throughout the morning and it can help to give me a feel good sensation but this isn't always the case. On some days I can react negatively to it and start sweating and feel a bit stressed. Generally I do think it helps me to get over that tired fuzzy feeling I can get before 10 am.

In the afternoon I try and just have 1 cup of normal tea after my walk with the dog. If I do want another one then I will stick to decaf, glad to say I have just found one decent one, it has taken me years to find this (Tetley Decaf),

However, in general I really enjoy my tea and its something I wouldn't ever give up so probably addicted too!

Pam
 

Hanna

Senior Member
Messages
717
Location
Jerusalem, Israel
@drob31 I feel better cognitively when I drink coffee. I can't do more physically, but at least I feel slightly more human, like my thoughts are a bit more clear. I think caffeine has a different effect on different people, I think there's a genetic factor to this but I can't remember where I read that. Dr Myhill talks about the possible benefits of coffee too (here).

Coffee "a la Myhill" with 2gr of d-ribose once or twice a day help me feel better. It doesn't last, but I appreciate it. No miracle, but a slight boost, without overstimulation.
 

Snookum96

Senior Member
Messages
290
Location
Ontario, Canada
I also find it gives me a mental boost. I drink too much of it though and have been trying to cut back.

Physically it helps me to stay awake but doesn't give me the energy to do any more than I would without it.
 

Debbie23

Senior Member
Messages
137
I can't do without caffeine I never feel like it massively increases my energy or makes me feel I can do more, but I feel so, so, so much worse in all ways but especially cognitively if I try and cut it out. My activity level remains the same whether I am having caffeine or not, but how unwell and mentally sluggish I feel increases massively if I try and cut it out. I wouldn't say I think caffeine in any form makes me feel stimulated either, just more able to resolve that sluggish feeling in my head and body. My limits remain the same but I feel better within them.

I've tried Cutting caffeine several times in the past thinking I'd be being healthier and feel better for it when I've felt especially tired and had more headaches etc. because I was wondering if I'd fallen into a caffeine cycle and that was why those symptoms increased. But when I cut it out I didn't feel any better and I felt so much worse in all ways; I even slept worse, and felt even worse than usual on waking! It was like caffeine withdrawal that just didn't end. I held out for a couple of months each time I tried thinking this would resolve and it didn't. My brain felt sluggish, I just felt even more fatigue than usual and other symptoms increased too.

I usually have a couple of cups of coffee when I wake and then maybe a couple of cups throughout the day, I tend to respond to the feeling if I need a boost and just have a cup of coffee or tea as an when I want one without bothering about it anymore. My energy pattern is more like roller coaster, with peaks and troughs through the day or my waking period, than a curve and I find that if I take a cup of coffee sometimes my energy Level doesn't increase but it feels more stable over the day unless I've had to over exert Or I'm in a crash when I can't control the steepness of the dips in energy; then I definitely feel better if I have a cup When I feel I need it. I've also found some evenings that if I have a cup of coffee in the evenings I feel like I sleep better. I certainly don't sleep any worse for it! So at worst it doesn't seem to negatively influence symptoms and at best I feel a lot better for it. So I don't fret about caffeine at all tbh.

I always find this one really interesting with how some people feel better for it and others don't. :)
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
A cup of coffee in the morning helps with the nausea, vomiting, shakiness, black spots before my eyes, low BP, fainting etc. It just makes that horrific time of the day more bearable. Other liquids don't do the trick.

I don't drink coffee at all the rest of the day. Things do improve for me naturally as the day goes on though. If I do drink coffee later on it makes me feel too shaky and hyper.

When I first got ME (acute viral onset) and those morning symptoms I didn't drink coffee or tea at all.
 

Rand56

Senior Member
Messages
675
Location
Myrtle Beach, SC
I tried giving up coffee a short time ago. Bad move. Even with coffee, I struggle with motivation/increased procrastination, and without the caffeine, take these symptoms X 10!

I had zero motivation and didn't feel like doing a damn thing, plus my depression got worse.
I've never been a total caffeine addict, just mainly drink a few cups in the morning, and only on occasion a cup in the afternoon. I even tried weening down on the coffee to avoid possible headaches which I did not get. But when my system was eventually free of caffeine..horrible. I'm back on coffee :)
 
Messages
759
Location
Israel
Helps me very little.

I wake at 12pm (have delayed circadium rythm) that means I must drink it within 4 hours of waking, if I don 't want to have even more insomnia than usual.
 

CantThink

Senior Member
Messages
800
Location
England, UK
I get the cognitive benefit @Debbie23 mentioned. I am pretty much useless in the morning without it. It lifts my brainfog enough to be able to speak and get out of bed. I have a tea, then 1-2 coffees... Then the rest of the day tea & water, unless I go out of the house or just really fancy another coffee.

It's weird if I don't have it. I'm then wading through mud mentally. I don't get withdrawal headaches - I am able to not drink it, but my function is so poor without it that I can't see the point to stop. It is definitely a tool for me.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
A cup of coffee in the morning helps with the nausea, vomiting, shakiness, black spots before my eyes, low BP, fainting etc. It just makes that horrific time of the day more bearable. Other liquids don't do the trick.
A thought -- have you checked your pulse pressure (systolic minus diastolic) first thing in the morning? Your symptoms sure sound like hypovolemia, which is often worse in the morning because you're not hydrating while you sleep. Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, so it's possible that the caffeine is helping to get more blood flow to your brain until you get enough fluid into yourself to get your blood volume back into a tolerable range.

If you are dehydrating overnight and suffering low blood volume first thing in the morning, there are ways to manage it so you don't feel quite so dreadful -- some are meds, some are behavioral techniques. I find it takes both, but different things seem to work for different people.
 

whodathunkit

Senior Member
Messages
1,160
I'm just curious of other peoples experience. I seem to have decent benefits from small doses of caffeine. I'm not sure if it's the AMPK activation or something else (adrenaline/cortisol), but it seems to turn the lights on.
I think whether or not you get benefit from caffeine, esp. if you have adrenal problems, might have something to do with your Phase I detox. If you're slow Phase I (I am) it might not be so good for you as you don't eliminate caffeine as quickly so it hangs around raising cortisol (not good for us crashy adrenal people) and possibly creating or extending jitters, etc.

Or maybe if your cortisol is really low it might help make you feel better. But in the long term in that situation it just pushes the adrenals too hard for short term gain, exhausting them more.

I love the taste of coffee and tea but have never reacted well to caffeine. When I was in high school we used to get these caffeine pills out of the back of High Times magazine (we called them "speed") that would just send me beyond jitters for a couple of hours and then I wold become comatose for 12 hours afterwards. Literally, I would fall asleep in class and then go striaght to bed until next morning after I got home. My friends made fun of me because of my weird reaction.

Too much coffee still has somewhat of the same effect, although obviously not as extreme because not as much caffeine involved.

Getting my genetics and finding out that I had slow Phase I explained a lot.