Marianne Gutierrez: Health Practitioner: Coffee

Coffee · 16 July 2006

Day 23

This is Day 23 of giving up cofee, decaffeinated coffee. Coffee pangs are almost neligible and when I do succumb I don’t want it. I take two sips of my freshly brewed decaff cup of coffee and throw the rest away.

Can’t say that I have noticed any differences to the ME/CFS symptoms. Well that isn’t true come to think of it. I don’t need the chamomile tea in the evenings to help me sleep. Sleeping is much the same as before. I sleep about 5-6 hours although I have noticed that I am sleeping through to 6:30ish whereas before it was 5am. Do still get the awake all night business when I have done too much the day before.

O but wait a minute I had an extremely busy day two days ago and slept like a log that night and for most of the following day!!! Interesting. But too soon to tell if the slight variations of my symptoms are anything to do with the drinking of or not drinking of coffee whether decaffeinated or not.

I have also been researching theobromine another compound found with caffeine. Theobromine is a chemical in coffee, chocolate and tea that also interferes with the anti-diuretic hormone vasopressin so giving us the urge to wee more often and causing an imbalance to the body so that it may retain water too because we are weeing too often. Theobromine also interferes with an important nerve called Vagus that is one of the facial nerves. This nerve is one of the most important nerves in the body and theobromine can cause it to malfunction and one symptom of this is difficulty in swallowing and acid reflux. Theobromine is also used in the drug industry as a diuretic and for other conditions. See this link Theobromine .

So maybe some symptoms of ME/CFS will be helped when giving up coffee, chocolate, tea and caffeine. This site makes interesting reading: Teeccino

Hmm … back to eating carob chocolate … it isn’t too bad once you get used to it!!

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