Hello, ManicDepressive07, yes, it could be related to the causes of your illness. Please understand, though, that something of that sort
could only be diagnosed by a specialist--an allergist. He could
possibly direct you to the bloodwork needed to determine if you're
caffeine sensitive.

You can detect it in yourself, however, by observing whether you are addicted to it, have sharp better-feeling tone immediately after its use, only to have your feeling tone drop strongly after several hours requiring more to alleviate the depressed state. If you have headaches on stopping caffeine; if it causes insomnia, or if you feel as if you're in a fog, irritated, or "down", you have a problem with caffeine in your diet.

I think Ms. Whalen is talking about bipolar illness, and several things convince me of that. The first psychiatrist I ever saw advised me to stop the use of caffeine because it made bipolar illness worse. (No mention was made of sensitivity at that time.) Also, she advised not to use alcohol, because that made bipolar illness worse.

I definitely had an addiction to caffeine and looked forward to coffee every day. Stopping it caused headaches. There were digestive problems using caffeine, and it made depression worse. Most recently, my psychiatrist told me that for people who are sensitive to caffeine it should be removed from the diet completely.

In addition, Ms. Whalen points out that the woman who had been on medications was completely free of the need to take them once she removed caffeine from her diet. I don't know that one can do that with borderline personality disorder. Some discussion on another website by doctors who examined bipolar patients points out that bipolar patients are noted for having poor diets when they are first seen: e.g., one person had survived for months on nothing but diet sodas and potato chips. The site was called (Safe Harbor if you want to read what those scientists have to say about bipolar patients and diets.)

Then, too, replies from people who have stopped caffeine on forums have convinced me that it does affect a number of people with bipolar illness. I'm one, and I know of several others who have improved their status notably by changing their diets to have better nutrition, and removing caffeine was one of the things they did.

It has to do with acid-building in the tissues and organs of the body. It is best to keep the fluids and tissues slightly on the alkaline side rather than have such a strong acidic condition bothering one from foods that are high in acids or are digested with an acid residue. (All medications, incidentally, leave an acid residue or "ash" that must be metabolized by the kidneys.) It doesn't help to pour the acids to
them continually day in and day out. Foods that do that are generally the caffeine-containing sodas, caffeine products, white flour products, milk products, and sugars. There are others, too, but that'll do for the time being!

Take care.