Living With...Caffeine Allergy & Intolerence

I don't tend to do posts like this, but I'm mostly writing this as a warning. 

As a child I was never allowed to have drinks like Coke or Pepsi, in fact any fizzy drink was out of the question unless it was a special occasion. But obviously being the rebel I am, as I grew older I broke the rules and went crazy with energy drinks and my addiction to Pepsi got so bad that I'd be drinking 3 or 4 litres a day. I wouldn't even realise how much I was drinking. I'd just keep bottles in my room and keep filling up my glass through-out the day. Then I started to work at McDonalds and it got so much worse because I was getting free drinks there, and as time went on I started doing night shifts so would drink 4 or 5 energy drinks through my shift to keep me going. It was excessive, but no more excessive than people having a few cups of coffee each day, so I didn't really ever think there was anything wrong. 

One day I sorted to get these massive burning rashes all over my body. I went to the Doctors countless times and nobody knew what they were. Then my bones and muscles started to fail me. I'd sprain my wrist weekly and had no idea why. My muscles and bones hurt so much some days that I couldn't get out of bed, I used to cry myself to sleep at night. And then came the stomach pains, horrible, horrible stomach cramps that would last days on end and left me feeling crippled. It was awful. Doctor's kept prescribing me with pills that wouldn't work and it got to the stage where I literally thought I was going to die. I remember being on holiday and obviously I was drinking a lot to keep myself hydrated in the heat, and each night I'd go to bed with a massive burning rash on my back, so bad that I couldn't lie down properly and I'd just have to deal with it. It was awful. My life was becoming hell. 

I carried on my life through all of this, and eventually got a new job for a PPI & loan company. There I met some amazing people, one of the lads that I'd met saw my rashes and asked me if I drank caffeine. I said "no I hate coffee, but I do like to drink coke" and he looked at me knowingly. That night he facebooked me with a link to website which explained caffeine intolerance and caffeine allergies. 

Straight away I knew.

I had all the symptoms and a lot of the "other possible symptoms" - you know the ones that only certain people get. I suddenly felt relief, I wasn't dying, there was nothing really wrong with me. And from that day I cut out caffeine completely. 

It was hard, everything has caffeine in it. I have to check every thing I eat because some of the strangest things that you wouldn't even expect have caffeine in. Even some caffeine-free products have a small percentage of caffeine in (absolutely ridiculous, don't get me started) I've managed to completely cut it out of my diet though and within about a week of cutting it out my whole life had changed. I felt back to normal, nothing hurt. No rashes. It was an absolute miracle. 

Now I'm writing this mainly as a warning. The intolerance to caffeine was of my own making. When you overdo something so much, then your body will start to reject it. This can happen with pretty much anything. My diet was not healthy and my body could not cope. I see my Mum drinking 5 or 6 cups of coffee a day and I just want to scream and shout at her because I would never ever wish the pain on her or anyone for that matter. My friends who drink energy drinks I get really angry at because there's nothing I can do to help them. 

Caffeine allergy and intolerance can happen to anyone at any stage in their life. It's not something that you are born with, it's something that happens over time and it's something that you brought upon yourself. It's hard to deal with and it hurts like hell. 

So put that cup of coffee down and go and drink some water. You'll feel so much better for it x

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