Giving up caffeine

[Lalavande]

I've been meaning to report back on my experiment with giving up caffeine over the summer. I am 49 and have been struggling horribly with sleep despite being on HRT for two years, supplementing with magnesium (as well as B vitamins and vitamin D) and being careful with my diet which is low in carbs. I was drinking a few cups of green tea a day - always before noon - but I decided to see what would happen if I stopped.

The withdrawal was horrendous. I had a full week of pounding headaches and felt fluey and shaky. The insomnia that week was ridiculous. Since then, though, things have been going really well. As long as I'm not particularly stressed about something, I can usually manage at least 7 hours' sleep a night. And best of all, I don't wake up gripped with anxiety. I've even managed to reduce my estradiol (Sandrena) from 2mg to 1.5mg.

I'd definitely encourage anyone with perimenopausal sleep and/or anxiety issues to give it a go!

I wouldn't get a thing done without coffee!

I virtually gave up coffee for about five years. I had one cup of half-caff Nespresso before 8am then nothing else. Mint tea all day. It definitely helped a bit with insomnia and anxiety. Now that I’m in my 60’s I’ve started drinking the occasional coffee through the day and even, daringly, in the evening and it’s fine. I’m really happy about being able to drink coke again as well. So giving up caffeine doesn’t need to be forever in my experience.

That's good to know, Chemenger. I do miss the green tea but not enough to give up the improvements in sleep. I will give it a while then I might start experimenting again.

I didn't think my brain would work without the caffeine, JaneJeffer, but it's made no difference. (Not sure if that's good or bad!)

I've suffered disturbed sleep for years, waking up several times to pee with an incredibly sore, burning feeling in my lower belly. GP, nurse, specialist had no advice other than taking amitriptylene which worked for a while but then the pain and sleeplessness returned. I was booked in for a scan of my bladder later this month.

Last week I suffered a particularly bad bout of anxiety, which turned out to be pmt (I never know where I am in my cycle these days so didn't twig this until I got my period soon after). In desperation I followed every self help tip for anxiety I could find, and one of them was cutting down on caffeine. I'd been drinking 4 -6 black coffees daily and I cut down to just the one in the morning and drank herbal tea the rest of the time.

To my surprise, not only did the anxiety lift the same day but for the first night in years I had no pelvic pain at all. It's been over a week now and I'm still on just the one coffee at 8am and I'm waking just the once to pee, sleeping great, waking up feeling great and no sign of that horrible pain!

That's incredible, BankruptedByBirds. I'm very pleased you made this discovery. I used to love yerba mate tea but I found that irritated my bladder so I gave it up a couple of years ago. I don't have anything left to give up now!

The caffeine could have been irritating your bladder x

Yes, that's what I'd concluded. I'm just frustrated that none of the health professionals I'd consulted ever asked/advised on caffeine consumption.