This one is for the coffee addicts

For me, it took about 4-5 days.

I drink coffee but I have no idea how long it would take cos I've never stopped drinking it for long enough!

The headache is evil, though.

At least a week. With regular naps because conciousness is caffiene dependent. I quit over winter break between semesters. Would get up at 6 am with my husband, be back asleep by 10, stay asleep until 2 or 3 when he got home, then go to bed at 9 or 10. I was also cranky as fuck.

I tried kicking tea once and had an absolute corker of a headache for 4-5 days, so that shows you how much I drink. There's less caffeine in tea, of course.

I had the vaguest shadow of that headache still hanging round for nearly two weeks, no lie.

scarletpeaches said:

There's less caffeine in tea, of course.

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Actually, we did caffeine extractions in one of my organic chemistry labs (classmates were joking with me that they thought I'd chop it up and snort lines of it from the lab bench) and by mass, tea had more caffiene than coffee. It all depends on how you brew it, but I use significantly more coffee per cup than I do tea.

True. But there's less tea in a teabag than there is coffee in a...uh...coffeebag?

Jesus. This thread is making me thirsty. I'm gonna put the kettle on.

I once went 8 hours without coffee and the headache got so bad I couldn't function.

scarletpeaches said:

True. But there's less tea in a teabag than there is coffee in a...uh...coffeebag?

Jesus. This thread is making me thirsty. I'm gonna put the kettle on.

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Right. Teabags have maybe a tsp (5 mL) of tea, whereas coffee... I use well over 1 tbsp (15 mL), close to 2 tbsp per cup when I make coffee. But then, I like my coffee ridiculously strong.

I was merely pointing out that by mass... I am a geek.

I've quit coffee twice. (Dark days indeed.) Both times the headaches lasted two days.

IME, with any sort of caffeine addiction (soda, chocolate, tea OR coffee), it'll take about a week to get over the effects of going cold turkey.

Weird, I'll drink anywhere from 0 to 6 cups a day depending on my mood.

I've never had a single headache from not drinking coffee.

I have stopped drinking coffee a few times, but I never go headaches from it.

I don't know if you are interested in this, but just in case I work in a tea shop and Honeybush (a plant from South Africa) is drank as a tea and is good for headaches. There are other herbs too...but I'd have to look them up. I could if you want.

It's probably all kinds of wrong that for me, a standard breakfast is two nurofen migraine and a mug of tea.

Just to chime in:

The really evil, brain tumor-level migraines last two days for me, and they start after going more than about 18 hours without caffeine. Then they taper off and take about a week to subside.

And that pain is friggin' INTENSE. I've had non-caffeine-related migraines, and it's on par with that. You almost want to die.

I used to work nights, and I drank a TON of coffee - giant cup from Bess Eaton (think Dunkin Donuts) on the way to work, another at 3am "lunch" time, and another when I got out of work - and a few cups of the crud they called coffee out of the machine in between. However - I didn't drink coffee at home. I don't really remember getting headaches, but I did sleep most of the weekends (when I wasn't working.) Finally just gave up and started drinking it at home.

I have been in this situation, sorta--and for me, the pressure point that worked the best to relieve the headache was the one between the base of the thumb and forefinger. There's a way to feel for a small lump there--you pinch it between the thumb and forefinger tips of the other hand and gradually increase the pressure, then very slowly let off the pressure. It's helped my caffeine withdrawal headaches immensely.

Your wellness group members had better be patient people. Living with somebody going off caffeine is not for the sensitive. It can be a lot like living with this....

Oh, I just want to go rescue this pretend person.... poor thing.

But yeah, 3 days headache for me if I "go off". Which I have never once done willingly.

And the bitchiness - oh, it is of epic proportion.

Chiquita Banana said:

I've given him a massive headache and the wellness folks are doing their best to help alleviate his pain with special herbal teas and pressure point therapy. So far he's only been there one day.

My question is this: how long will he be having headaches, considering he's gone cold turkey after a 6-7 a day habit? The teas/pressure points help but I don't think they'd take away his pain completely.

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At the height of my caffeine addition I was drinking about 150 grams of instant coffee a day - that's a medium jar.

Now I'm down to about 6 cups. I don't get a 'buzz' from coffee, never have. But I get serious withdrawl if I don't have it, or don't have enough.

I stopped completely when I was pregnant and the headaches are the worst. I felt like my whole head was being squeezed, like my brain was too big for my skull.

They lasted for about a week straight. I couldn't sleep.

I started to get the shakes after the first day, it started in my hand and progressed until i was shivering all over.

By day three I was getting really bad palpatations to the extent that my doctor suggested I keep drinking small amounts of coffee so the withdrawl wouldn't pose a risk to my pregnancy.

I drink tons of coffee - usually kick off with four espressos + milk in the morning and I can easily drink four times that. It varies. I've gone cold turkey many times and usually get a vague headache the first day but that's the only reaction I ever got. I've never experienced a caffeine high from coffee - it does zero to wake me up and I can have three ristrettos and sleep like a baby so maybe I'm not typical?

Chiquita Banana said:

Goodness, thanks so much for the responses, everyone! This is so helpful. And it's especially good to know about the naps, jennontheisland. This guy (my character) is a total career obsessed type-A personality who never sleeps more than four hours a night. I can't wait to get him all freaked out about how much he's sleeping! (I feel like a sadist because I'm having so much fun torturing this character...)

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This used to me be me and let me tell you, I NEED more than four hours sleep. I feel best on 9 hours. I just didn't allow myself to get it. Any feeling of being tired is nothing compared to my drive. I've flown across the continent and done high level multi-lingual meetings on no sleep at all. The less I sleep, the less I feel I need it. Finally, you're too tired to sleep and you don't even know you're tired because it's every day. You've simply taught yourself to be blind and deaf to your physical needs, like hunger and tiredness because you're constantly high on achievement. At least that was me.

When I finally came down after years of this, it took me about a month on sleeping pills before I could sleep a full 8 hours even with the pills.

ETA: I tried giving up coffee for that month as well. Made no difference whatsoever.