Avoid Coffee with Fibromyalgia

Should You Avoid Coffee with Fibromyalgia

If you look like most adults out there, you are going to be reaching for a cup of coffee from time to time. You may drink this every morning to get up and ready for your day.

Or you may reach for a cup of coffee during the late afternoon when you feel like you can’t go anymore.

However, if you are suffering from fibromyalgia, you are going to find that reaching for that cup of coffee may not be in your best interest.

Why Ditch the Coffee?

So, what is it about coffee that fibromyalgia sufferers should ditch? The caffeine! Coffee has a ton of caffeine in it and this could greatly affect those patients who have fibromyalgia. Why is this?

Caffeine is a stimulus to the central nervous system. The central nervous system is where most medical professionals believe that fibromyalgia actually stems from.

In order to fully understand why caffeine should be ditched, consider this, caffeine is meant to engage the central nervous system, to give the person more energy and allow them to be more alert.

However, when you drink tons of caffeine, such as if you are someone who is drinking tons of coffee each day you may find that you get:

  • Insomnia
  • Anxiety
  • Muscle tremors
  • Depression
  • Issues with sleeping

With this being said, it can have even more problems for those who are dealing with fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia: The Symptoms

When looking at the symptoms of fibromyalgia, almost everyone is going to remember that this causes extreme pain and fatigue in the person that has this.

For those who have this, they often feel as though simply getting out of bed is a feat to accomplish on their own. They are often led to a life of isolation due to feeling so bad.

With this being said, here are a few common symptoms that almost all fibromyalgia sufferers are having:

  1. The intense pain throughout their bodies that centralize from pressure points
  2. The fatigue that makes it feel as though you never get enough sleep
  3. Inability to sleep due to the pain that they are feeling
  4. Depressions due to the life of isolation that they are often living
  5. Anxiety due to the fact that they cannot do what they once did
  6. Digestive issues due to not getting the rest they need and being in a state of depression all the time

Overall, the person becomes more isolated and they feel more pain than what most normally healthy people could imagine.

So, when considering the symptoms of fibromyalgia, why is coffee a bad thing?

Why Coffee is so Bad

Coffee can taste delicious to many people. However, fibromyalgia sufferers are going to want to steer clear. The amount of caffeine that is in a cup of coffee is going to be the reason why.

While a person may find that decaf coffee can be an option, there are just as many that find the taste to not be satisfactory.

As stated before, the caffeine in the coffee can cause several issues. If you were to look at these issues and then look at the symptoms of fibromyalgia, then drinking coffee is simply going to make the fibromyalgia worse in a person.

They are going to find that:

  1. They have even more trouble going to sleep
  2. Due to not being able to sleep, they are going to experience even more pain in most cases
  3. The depression they feel could actually become worse
  4. The caffeine can play havoc with the digestive systems that are already impaired due to the fibromyalgia

Overall, coffee is just something that a sufferer of fibromyalgia is going to want to avoid if at all possible.

With this being said, any type of caffeine is going to be something that fibromyalgia sufferers are going to want to avoid, as it can have the same effects whether this caffeine comes from a can of soda or a cup of coffee.

Avoid Coffee with Fibromyalgia

The Coffee and Gluten Connection

For those who suffer from fibromyalgia, they may find that they are told that they have gluten intolerance and have to eliminate this from their diet to feel better.

However, did you know that coffee often mimics gluten? Thus, if you have gluten intolerance you may find that coffee is doing the same thing!

Many people find that when they drink coffee their pain becomes worse, this is due to the coffee behaving as gluten.

This is just another reason why this needs to be taken out of your diet when you suffer from fibromyalgia!

But, can this be done? Yes! You can cut coffee out of your diet completely. But, realize that you may have some withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawing from Coffee

When you make the choice to stop coffee, you are ultimately doing this to ensure that your fibromyalgia is not worse than it should be.

However, be prepared for withdrawal symptoms that may even be worse than the symptoms you have with fibromyalgia. These symptoms can include:

  • A Headache
  • Jitters
  • Nervousness
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Fatigue

These are common and may last a few days, depending upon how much coffee you normally drank.

You can lower these symptoms through:

  1. Gradually decreasing your coffee intake
  2. Be sure to get extra sleep
  3. Stay hydrated
  4. Boost your energy with exercises instead of relying on the coffee

You will find that if you can tough this out for a few days, you will become a better you. What is more, is that this coffee could be making the pain and fatigue from fibromyalgia worse, so you may find that you can take on the world while still dealing with this illness.

Talk with your doctor about how much coffee you drink as he or she may have some suggestions on how to get your body over this addiction once and for all.

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