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Please see http://www.doctoryourself.ruthwhalen/caffeineallergy and since we
are using internet references, go to any of the sites that relate to caffeine and adrenal gland stress, adrenal fatigue from caffine use, etc., etc.

Are we about to have another "webisode"?

Well, Hampster, you're not SENSITIVE to it. Many people are, just as they are to caffeine, and chocolate is loaded with caffeine. But you do have your own sensitivities, though---the red wine which causes migraines for you. Red wine doesn't affect me at all in that way. Corn will cause headaches for me, though; so will wheat. They are sensitivities or intolerances.

Doublemonkey, sugar is poison, too, just as I suggested, for those who are sensitive to it, not just to diabetics. It is helpful to look at long-term effects of some of these things. As young people, that probably doesn't interest you. But it will as you grow
older when your electrical system begins to wear down because of the strength and easy-going lifestyle of some youth. We know that bipolar patients have a shorter expected life span than others.

I'm trying like the dickens to keep the electrical system in tact for at least several more years. Even a pacemaker has been helpful. I don't want any of you to have
to go through that as a result of thinking that things are good for you when, in the long-term, they may not be at all.

For more information on that read Dr. Kathleen DesMaissons book called "Potatoes, Not Prozac". or another of her books(called, I think--"Radiant Recovery"--) on sugar sensitivity and alcoholism. No need to discuss the ravages that alcohol induces (when one is an alcoholic or sensitive to alcohol and probably sugar).

Her doctorate is the first awarded for nutritional treatment of alcoholism with changes in diet. She is the daughter of a brilliant military man who died from alcoholism and she understands the sensitivity to sugar in alcoholism. She has had high percentage of success in treating alcoholism in patients by changes in their diets.

Yes, Lithium will cause acne--this from a skin specialist who treated me for it.
(Lamictal will, too; see the reports on the internet.)The antidepressants are designed to prolong the reuptake of serotonin, but some people can't take them, Hampster. It isn't a simple problem. It's very complex.

Everyone is different. I gave the information to Doublemonkey, because he seems so hopeless about anything that might change things in his illness.

Here's the rule of thumb regarding this: we are often addicted to things that we are sensitive to--this from an allergy specialist.

The only way to know if one has a sensitivity or an allergy (and more often a sensitivity, because an allergy to a food is a real danger. One can die from an allergy very quickly if not given epinephrine.) to a food is to remove it from the diet for two weeks. If one feels better, then he/she should avoid the food completely.

Doublemonkey talked about chocolate wrappers being all around him. That struck a bell with me just as it stuck a different bell with you because you know that you are not sensitive to it. I am and I know enough about the sensitivity reactions that I would not use it now, even though I like it intensely, too.

Genetic