when you HAVE to have caffeine, in what form do you have it?

I confess! I'm a hopeless coffee junkie. Despite warnings from my pdoc, I love the stimulation. I already gave up drugs & alcohol, but please don't take my coffee away! While I drink a pot every morning, it's one of the few vices I have left. I'd be well advised to give it up when hypo or full-blown manic, but I haven't done so in the past. Perhaps I'll have to give it another shot the next time I'm in one of those spaces. I know it just gets me more wound up than I am generally.

Does anyone know how much caffeine there is in various drinks? I am thinking of trying instant coffee with milk in place of lattes, to be cheap, but I have heard that instant has little caffeine. How many cups of instant equals one single latte?

Is that you, or the OCD talking? Sorry. I truly do wish I had that information on hand, but if you're curious about the caffeine content of various drinks I'm sure you can find the info online. Google is an amazing tool. Good luck finding what you need.

If I wanted to use search, I would have used search. I chose to rely on people who already might know. It is my choice how to do information retrieval. I am not going to report you to moderators, but your message is rude and unsupportive - in violation of local guidelines.

Coffee in huge quantities helps prevent Type 2 Diabetes. 1-3 cups a day does not make a difference.

http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/7-ways...035500360.html

I drink tea and coffee with Splenda. I could live on tea and coffee

What about your medications being a culprit? I assume you've already addressed this? I understand you might not be able to change your medications, etc. I used to take seroquel and I fell asleep during meetings on that. So my counselor suggested I talk to my psychiatrist and he reduced it and eventually I stopped it. Before bipolar medications I was very sensitive to caffeine, I'd get anxious. Now I drink 1-2 cups of coffee and often 1 cup of green tea also before coming to work. It doesn't make me anxious anymore. I am starting to notice I am a bit more sleepy in the morning now that I switched to taking some medications in the morning because I'm so tired of taking so many at night!

Thank you, flame, my meds have been adjusted and I am doing well. I still drink two lattes at work just in case, but no more than that.

Heheh, h-b, "just in case". Love it.
As for the question of how much caffeine in one vs another, I looked into it one time and... though there are numbers in general, so much depended on variables such as steeping/brewing time etc that it became fairly confusing. Maybe not "confusing" exactly, but definitive answers were rather elusive. Personally, I just go on my personal reaction to a given thing in general. Even still, there are times that something affects me differently than it usually does. Not sure what's up with that. Happened just the other night actually. (Did 14 hours of driving have anything to do with it? Lol. And hand over the Saltines.) Like so many things in life, there are so many variables, it can be hard to pin down exactly what's going on.

Thank you, Innerzone. I will experiment with instant to find the sweet spot at which I do not get headaches (and am not paying upwards of 3 bucks per drink!)

any fizzy drinks, tea, coffee, it's all good

Like Leroy Jethro Gibbs has it: Hot and Black. Now if I'm out, I drink Diet Coke, but for home I buy Caffine Free. Go Figure! Owl

starbucks coffee, redbull, vitamin b complex, vitamin b12

If you are having trouble staying awake in the mornings, have you considered Provigil or Nuvigil? I take Nuvigil every morning. I was taking Provigil but it wasn't strong enough for me. I was still having to drink a Rockstar with it in order to stay awake at work. Granted, I work at 3:30am. And that's later then the 2:30am start time I had up until a few months ago. But even on a day off, if I don't have Nuvigil I will fall asleep for a couple hours. Doesn't matter how much or little sleep I got the night before, I will get drowsy within a few hours. Like, make me useless and can't get off the couch no matter what.

I don't know all of its ingredients, because I figured it must be okay with my bipolar if my pdoc is prescribing it to me. Although, I didn't know anything about having too much caffeine. There's probably a lot of things I'm doing to make things worse or make my meds less effective.

Think about the Nuvigil. It's cheaper than buying a Rockstar or coffee drink every day, as long as your insurance covers it. With my hours, it's considered shift work, and that's what the med is for--shift work sleep disorder. I also took it a few years ago before getting pregnant to wake me up after taking Seroquel at night. I still find it ironic that I need meds to help me sleep at night and then meds to help me stay awake in the morning. I hope you find something that works for you. I understand not wanting to jeopardize your job. This is the only job I can find that will allow me to work full time and still have time to go to school during the day. It's very important that I keep it. Not to mention the fact that I need the money I earn from it.

Wow, you are a really committed person. A child, shiftwork, and school during the day! I am glad you have found a solution! Thank you for suggestions.

Instant coffee with reduced fat milk is not on a par with a latte in terms of taste BY FAR, but it does stave off migraines just as well, because caffeine is caffeine. And it costs pennies in comparison. So that would be my way to go for the weekends now.

I like my caffeine cold, Diet Dr Pepper, Coke Zero, Cold brewed coffee which I drink iced.

I have just read that caramel-colored drink are carcinogenic.
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatt...utrition-label

So better stick to cold brewed coffee on ice.

That is good news. Anything to get me out of this hell hole of my life ASAP.

Cancer is not an easy ASAP way out. It might be painful and long. So stick to your iced coffee, really.

At this point any way out is preferable to living. BTW I drink a case of 24 a week minimum.
Some quack last year decided I had breast cancer. $2500 (my co pay) later it was a false alarm. I love the way these doctors lie just to make money. I was livid, all that and I was health. I let her know how displeased I was. Suffering from whatever is unpleasant, but with untreated cancer it is finite. Technically what I am going through is finite but judging from my family's avg. lifespan I have about another 30 years. That is intolerable suffering. I think it is time to lose the coffee.

Well, if you figure in your daughter's early death, you no longer have another 30 years.

interesting read Hamster... thanks for sharing. i used to study health and nutrition in college, and also was very careful during pregnancies. But much time has passed.

castoreum... i'm pretty shocked and disgusted about that one. i'm sure the beavers are killed for this substance taken from their **** glands, put in things like ice cream and called natural.

i'd rather have the info than not, but feel like these food-making humans are so messed up. and of course our government who allows it to go on. even though i know how corrupt and evil our government is, i still expect more from them. but it won't change so we have to shop at whole foods which we can't even afford - and I think they are trying to take all our money also. i do grow my own food, but past 2 years, no fruit from the trees.

Yes, and you noticed, too, that while MSG has to be listed, the substance that becomes MSG in the body does not have to be called out - the government allows that.

Vigo - can you file malpractice? this sounds so wrong that they'd misdx you with cancer. and they can afford to let the $2500 slide. sheesh that is less than a drop in the bucket for their malpractice insurance.

And, cancer is not a good way to go... that's what my dad had. We were very close, it's been 13 years and I still miss him 100 times a day.