# If I drink one cup of coffee I get coffee withdrawal symptoms the next two days



## CoffeFooksMe (Feb 28, 2017)

I started drinking coffe when I was around 18 years old. I drank about 0-1 cups of black coffe per day. Some cheap brand. I could drink coffe straight every day for one week and then just "forget" about coffee for a week without any symptoms whatsoever. Over the years I started to drink more and more coffee. When I was around 21 I drank 2-3 cups per day. When I was 22 I started to notice that as soon as I didn't drink a cup of coffee for 6 hours I started to get withdrawal symptoms in terms of a slight headache and drowsiness.

I couldn't drink one cup of coffee every 6:th hour because first of all I don't like being addicted to any substance. And secondly, it was harder to fall asleep if I drank coffee in the evening. So I just quit, cold turkey. And my god that was the worst two weeks of my life. Headache from hell and I was annoyed at everything. Cloudy head and just felt miserable. But after around 2 weeks I was cured from my coffee addiction. I want to drink coffee on rare occasions, for example if I have a bad night's sleep and don't want to feel like a zombie the whole day, then I would like to be able to take just one cup of coffee which would save the day.

I'm now 23 years old and a few days ago I only slept 4 hours during the night and I felt the tiredness so I wanted to save the day by taking a cup of coffee. So I did. And the day was saved, I felt much better. Much more alert. The next day I woke up with a headache, a coffee headache. I knew it was because of the cup of coffee I had the day before. However I drank a cup of tea and soon the coffee headache was gone and I felt much better. I realized the tea I drank contained caffeine... The day after this I had a slight coffee headache and felt the normal coffee withdrawal symptoms.

Does this mean that over the years I have became sensitive to caffeine? I don't get super speedy and full of energy like some of my friends do when they drink coffee. They get a real kick from it. I have to drink 5-6 cups of coffee in order to get that kick and the shakiness in your hands. So by that I don't think I'm sensitive to caffeine. But then why do I get such bad withdrawal symptoms after occassionally drinking one cup of coffee?


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

If it makes you feel unwell, or unhappy just give it up. The "why" is pretty much irrelevant compared to the tangible symptoms you seem to suffer.

Not sure why anyone would use "shakiness in your hands" as a yardstick for how much coffee to drink


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## CoffeFooksMe (Feb 28, 2017)

MWJB said:


> If it makes you feel unwell, or unhappy just give it up. The "why" is pretty much irrelevant compared to the tangible symptoms you seem to suffer.
> 
> Not sure why anyone would use "shakiness in your hands" as a yardstick for how much coffee to drink


My point with "shakiness in your hands" is that I have friends who drink one cup of coffee and they seem to get very affected by it. Shakiness, speeded, very alert, almost to the point where they start jumping around. They have no coffee withdrawal symptoms. Whereas I don't get speeded from coffee, I don't feel like it's affecting me so much when I drink it, it just removes my tiredness and any headache I might have. So of course it feels better after I drink a cup of coffee, but I don't feel like coffee affects me that much.

Therefore I think that I'm not oversensitive to coffee, but yet I feel all the withdrawal symptoms very clearly and they are ruining my days. At the moment I'm sipping on some green tea with probably 20-30 mg caffeine. Maybe it's enough to remove my symptoms.

I can absolutely quit coffee and never drink it again. I guess I have to experiment with how much caffeine I can drink per day without getting the withdrawal symptoms. Perhaps I can still keep drinking caffeine if I just find the right balance.


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## Missy (Mar 9, 2016)

If it's making you ill stop drinking! Or try decaf. Lots of the quality roasters seem to be bringing in some interesting decafs.

Failing that is your coffee blended with robusta? I really don't get on with that.


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## El carajillo (Mar 16, 2013)

De-caff coffee otherwise give it up. Some people are super-sensitive to coffee and other foods.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Maybe you can, but to do so you need to monitor how much coffee (grounds/granules in weight to 0.1g) you are using for each cup & bear in mind that Arabica has less caffeine than Robusta.

How are you making your coffee?


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## CoffeFooksMe (Feb 28, 2017)

Missy said:


> If it's making you ill stop drinking! Or try decaf. Lots of the quality roasters seem to be bringing in some interesting decafs.
> 
> Failing that is your coffee blended with robusta? I really don't get on with that.


I have to look up decaf, but if it's a hassle I would probably just be better off switching my coffee with some low caffeinated green tea.

I was mostly drinking light roasted 100 % Arabica coffee.


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## CoffeFooksMe (Feb 28, 2017)

El carajillo said:


> De-caff coffee otherwise give it up. Some people are super-sensitive to coffee and other foods.


The thing is that I was drinking coffee for years without any symptoms. Can someone become hyper sensitive to coffee with age? Also it feels like I'm only hyper sensitive to the caffeine withdrawal symptoms, not to the positive effect of caffeine itself.



MWJB said:


> Maybe you can, but to do so you need to monitor how much coffee (grounds/granules in weight to 0.1g) you are using for each cup & bear in mind that Arabica has less caffeine than Robusta.
> 
> How are you making your coffee?


I've always made my coffee in a normal cheap $20 coffee maker. The past year I've been making coffee in a normal Moccamaster maker.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

CoffeFooksMe said:


> I've always made my coffee in a normal cheap $20 coffee maker. The past year I've been making coffee in a normal Moccamaster maker.


The cup-one? How much coffee to how much water?


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

I drank regular arabica coffee for years, then 12 months ago following a prolongued bout of stomach problems, I switched to decaf and everything sorted itself out very quickly. I thought any world had come to an end but I persevered and have found some very acceptable decaf coffee. I have tried switching back to normal beans for a day and the problems come back instantly.

decaf is not all that bad!


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## CoffeFooksMe (Feb 28, 2017)

MWJB said:


> The cup-one? How much coffee to how much water?


I don't know the measurements. Just enough coffee powder and water in order to make one full mug of coffee that isn't too dark or too light.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

CoffeFooksMe said:


> I don't know the measurements. Just enough coffee powder and water in order to make one full mug of coffee that isn't too dark or too light.


Within normal range, it's very difficult (I'd say impossible really) to brew to any standard by looking at the colour of the beverage.

You say "powder" are you using pre-ground (if so, how fine), or grinding yourself?

It's also pretty much impossible to make any guess as to how much coffee (grounds) you are consuming.


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## MediumRoastSteam (Jul 7, 2015)

CoffeFooksMe said:


> The thing is that I was drinking coffee for years without any symptoms. Can someone become hyper sensitive to coffee with age? Also it feels like I'm only hyper sensitive to the caffeine withdrawal symptoms, not to the positive effect of caffeine itself.
> 
> I've always made my coffee in a normal cheap $20 coffee maker. The past year I've been making coffee in a normal Moccamaster maker.


Out of curiosity, what happens if you drink Redbull or Coke? Redbull specifically have a significant amount of caffeine. Would that cause you a problem?


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## Josevonspain (Feb 27, 2017)

Any kind of subtance addiction is pretty bad, I would say just quit coffee. However you need to progressively drink less and less. Don't just stop all at once, that's when you experience withdrawl symptoms.


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## Madan (Oct 14, 2019)

Hi, I am not sure if this blog is still Active. But I am writing this here any way. after years and years of sipping my Black Americano every day (3 times a day in fact). Finally I decided to Quit. I am healthy and active in sports and go to regular gym 3 times a day. I have a healthy balance life style. But thought Coffee was becoming my unconscious addiction. Any way finally I have to bite the bullet and take in my stride and saying QUIT.

Last coffee I had is 3 days ago (Friday evening), First day was fine I can cope. second is worse headache, sleeping drowsiness and 3rd day I am still missing something. I hope some of you are trying to quit or in a same boat as me. Now its Monday in office I feel I am missing something. To compensate I had Protein bar and Normal Tea.

Instead of beating myself around and resisting on my own. I felt sharing was better option to keep me motivated and keeping and updating the blog once in a week. Targeting for 25 days with NO COFFEE.


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## AndyDClements (Aug 29, 2016)

I used to have 3-4 large coffees at work, so 16 shots/day, I tried quitting and couldn't take the headaches. The only way I managed to quit was to do it when I had all 4 wisdom teeth removed, I was on lots of paracetamol and ibuprofen, for several days. I tried staying off it completely (considering the quality it wouldn't have been a loss), but in the end have gone for one coffee per day which means c250g of beans / week (which I think works out to equivalent of 35 shots/ week), the rest is decaf.

Well done for having the will power, if you like the taste but want to remove the addiction, then a decent decaf (I use a swiss water ) will have virtually no caffeine.


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## Atia Akhter (Nov 6, 2019)

If you're feeling bad then, stop drinking and try to have decafe. It is loaded with antioxidants and linked to reduced risk of all sorts of serious diseases. ☕


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

It's possible to have the same problem from tea. I drank decaf tea for a while and wondered why I got regular headaches.

John

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## Farzana (Nov 6, 2019)

I would love to drink cafe pingado (brown Coffee) during my headache.


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## CoffeeHeadaches (Jan 14, 2022)

I have exactly the same problem as OP. Drank lots of coffee without issues, then stopped completely and suffered through withdrawal symptoms. I don't drink coffee regularly anymore. However after that, even if I have one cup a month, I get withdrawal symptoms for a few days. I was wondering if anyone had the same issue and found this post.

I don't have a solution, but good to know I'm not the only one


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## Just_Me (9 mo ago)

CoffeeHeadaches said:


> I have exactly the same problem as OP. Drank lots of coffee without issues, then stopped completely and suffered through withdrawal symptoms. I don't drink coffee regularly anymore. However after that, even if I have one cup a month, I get withdrawal symptoms for a few days. I was wondering if anyone had the same issue and found this post.
> 
> I don't have a solution, but good to know I'm not the only one


Withdrawal symptoms are completely normal after you skip having your daily cuppa. I would advise people who are trying to quit it to wait at least 2 weeks, or even a month (to be on the safe side) before they consume caffeine again (which is what I did). Quitting here implies no tea that contains caffeine either. It can be an unpleasant experience but the worst part will be over in 7 days. Maybe get yourself herbal tea or fruit tea if you find yourself routinely having your cuppa at a particular time. I am not sure how you get withdrawal symptoms just from one cup of coffee a month. You may not have given yourself enough time to clear your brain from the excessive adenosine receptors that are usually created if you have previously drank coffee on a daily basis. Another possible explanation is that when the 'bang' energy effect wears out, you feel a bit more drowsier, which is normal.

If you still want to have a cup of coffee now and then, stick to 2 times per week (3 on very rare occasions), on random days, not 2, and certainly not 3 consecutive ones. The latter can get your brain used to caffeine again.
Hopefully someone will find this piece of advice helpful, speaking from experience.


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