Caffeine withdrawals.

Crystal46, which decaff brand is your favourite? I have tried many and still prefer lidl's own.

Thank you so much everyone for your helpful and supportive replies ✨

BlueSky, Amberone, I helped to ease the discomfort today with an Anadin Extra tablet, which contains caffeine. Fleur20, I can certainly understand how bad that headache must’ve been! Well done for sticking with it.

Luckily I have a favourite decaf brand which is as good as a lot of the caffeinated ones.

Somehow or other the tiredness will hopefully pass. Maybe walking a lot as well as drinking water etc. I’ll have to find out!

Surely you don’t need to give coffee up altogether and certainly don’t need to go cold turkey! Just reduce it, alternate with tea that has much less caffeine and or with decaf if you like the taste. It could possibly be harmful to stop it suddenly, similar to alcohol to a certain extent.

Drink plenty of water.

A description of what happens to the body with caffeine

When you stop drinking coffee, you deprive your body of adrenaline and dopamine, hormones that act as natural stimulants and keep you awake. Instead, a flood of adenosine—a hormone responsible for rest and tiredness—rushes to your head, causing a change to your brain chemistry that results in a headache.

Lots and lots of water/squash/herbal tea to rehydrate you and wash it out of your system as soon as possible. Sleep as much as possible. OTC painkiller if necessary.

Many years ago we had free coffee in my office - if one person went for coffee they got it for the whole team, so we were drinking it all day long.

After someone told me that I was addicted I decided to prove them wrong and give it up. Result - bad, bad headaches for a week. Couldn't stay awake in the office - by lunchtime I had my head on the desk. Took about 2 weeks to get back to normal, although the headaches only lasted a day or two. Now only have one caffeinated per day, and one decaff.

Coffee would be the last thing on my list if I had to give up my vices. I don’t find Decaf is as good, even freshly ground, it doesn’t taste the same, and I hate tea. I’m down to two mugs a day, achieved very slowly by cutting down from about five or six cups, I have them both in the morning as that’s when I’ve found headaches develop if I cut down too far. It would be very easy to have a third, but I stick to cold drinks after that.

Bluebelle...I know...but nothing like the coffee I was drinking.. and some of it was herbal/fruit teas...
I am now a reformed character, one mug of coffee a day before 6pm and sticking with more water..no longer the bottled stuff ? and some really nice Pukka teas.

‘Gallons of tea’ are full of caffeine too fleur

I always use decaf and don’t taste any difference

My absolutely blinding headache lasted for three days when I went cold turkey...was drinking 6 - 8 mugs of strong black filter coffee a day.
I drank gallons of tea, water, fruit juice and tried to keep as busy as possible.
Within a week I felt so much better, more energy, better sleep and very proud of myself!!
Good luck.... and stick with it...

Maybe reduce it rather than go cold turkey? I can be a bit oversensitive to caffeine so we use half caffeinated/half decaf. You can then taper it down.