Caffeine question.

Bella77007

I apologise if this is not the correct place to ask and I know that people differ in their tolerance to caffeine but I was wondering if anyone could share knowledge or perhaps experience.

I do have problems with anxiety but am usually fine to drink one or two mugs of instant coffee per day with no ill effects,however this morning I did something that in hindsight was idiotic.

Now and then I will go to a coffee shop,the last two times were fine but I had eaten on those days and didn't finish my entire drink,today I had not eaten,it was stupid and I will never do it again but anyway I went in,had a large cappuccino and started to feel edgy and anxious.

At that point it wasn't too bad, I left and went to the grocery store where after a few minutes things got really bad,as I walked into the chilled area my vision blurred, I felt faint and light headed and then started to shake very badly.

It went from feeling edgy to the most awful full blown panic attack I have ever had,eased for a couple of minutes and then came back, I honestly thought I was going to end up in hospital.

The caffeine amount I had was 260mg which I know is fairly high but having googled around a lot of places don't seem to think it is that much, I think deep down I am pretty sure that it was the cause, I drank it fairly quickly on an empty stomach and really should have checked it first, I checked the calories but not the caffeine content.

I am 5ft 1 and currently weigh 131 pounds if that makes any difference but what I am asking is do you think 260 mg of caffeine was really enough to do that to me?

I still feel shaken but much better than earlier,have eaten and been drinking lots of water,any opinions or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

slaite1

It's the anxiety. You had extra caffeine on an empty stomach. You realized this and had a panic attack. My super scientific thought is that it was 20% caffeine and 80% in your head. Caffeine is not great for anxiety bc it can cause the same physical symptoms-but it does not cause a panic attack. It probably elevated your heart rate and then it just snowballed. You gave yourself an anxiety attack triggered by too much caffeine. Lesson learned :-)

Bella77007

Yes Slaite that does make total sense, I think once I went dizzy and light headed the fear kicked in and it went from being a little too much caffeine plus no food to a state of panic and feeling I was out of control which in turn propelled itself into the actual panic attack.

The physical symptoms were the starting point and then from there I held onto them and off I went into the panic,lesson learned indeed,thank you