How does caffeine affect you?

Hi,

   I have alot of problems intermittantly with huge amounts of upper GI  pressure, gas, belching, and feeling like a small animal is living in my chest.  I haven't been able to decide if it's from my GERD or my IBS.    I have a glass of coke every morning, and it doesn't seem to bother me.  But if I'm having a flare of my IBS/GERD, even though the coke doesn't bother me, if I take  one Exedrine (that has 65mg of caffeine in it), it makes my symptoms alot worse later that day.  Just curious how caffeine affects your IBS, and can you use it sometimes, but not others?  Thanks.

Thanks Lil,

Maybe that coke I have every morning causes me more problems than I think. It seems to be delayed though. I tend to get all my bloating and pressure later in the day.
It's really inconsistent with me. When I'm not having alot of my various fibromyalgia symptoms, I can get away with alot. But as soon as I start having a flare-up.......I have to avoid almost everything. Thanks!

Cathy, something to consider is carbonation as well. Sodas add to the bloat. Good luck!

When I drink coffee I have to eat something first . usually the coffee helps my bowels to move
I know It isnt good for me to drink but sometimes I just have to. I know the sodas do cause me bloat allso. I have to lay off of them
and when I do I can tell the diffrents.

Cathy, I was a hard-core coke drinker until I finally linked drinking cokes to having diarrhea and cramping and unrelieved gas. Then, boy, I dropped them like a hot potato! I also felt a lot better. Even after getting the old gall bladder out, I was still touch-and-go with being able to tolerate them, so I just quit trying.

To "get off" any food item is a process that, I think, takes years (at least that's been the case with me). So, while I found it pretty easy to drop most of my caffeine intake when I realized it made me sick, I would still have times when I would want one so bad, I'd drink it even if it made me sick. Eventually, though, I got used to being well and became unaccustomed to being sick--which made it even worse when I did get sick. So the tradeoff between coke pleasure now and diarrhea all day tomorrow became less and less worth it. Also, the longer you are "off" something, the less appealing it becomes. So my occasional coke drinks became farther and farther apart until now--4 or 5 years later--I don't even think about having a regular coke. The most I've done with a regular coke for a year is take a sip of my husband's in order to swallow a pill or wet my throat enough to quit coughing. And even that sip doesn't taste good anymore.

If you're like me, you think the taste of caffeine-free coke is disgusting. Let me tell you about my coke alternative that's better than any coke on the market and caffeine-free to boot: Stewart's black cherry fountain sodas (they also come in grape, cream soda, orange creme, lime and root beer that I know about--diet as well as non-diet). This drink will put to shame Cherry Coke; it will render it completely undrinkable to your palate due to it's pitifully inadequate cherry flavoring. Stewart's colas are the absolute best! They're not cheap--I pay around $3.50 for 4 bottles--and they're not always easy to find--I find them at Harris Teeter and Fresh Market and other higher-end grocery stores--but they are, like I said, far superior to other flavored sodas and caffeine-free. They are also very low in carbonation--especially compared to a canned Coke--and have never bothered me on that account. They are absolutely the only coke-like substance that I can and will drink. Although, actually, I have been off cokes and off sugar for so long now, that I have stopped craving even them--except maybe some in the summertime when it's hot.

Try replacing your morning coke with a Stewart's and see if getting rid of the carbonation and caffeine make you feel any better. Eventually you'll get to where you never want a regular coke again and wonder what made it taste so good in the first place. Of course the price will keep you from overdosing on the Stweart's, lol.