Coffee hurt or help?

[joeljjk11]

Does coffee help or hurt your sleep apnea, as far as your AHI numbers? Have you noticed a difference when drinking more coffee as opposed to cutting back? Just wondering on how people are with coffee and their apnea - I have noticed that my numbers can improve when I drink more coffee, I do not really understand why this would happen but it does - thanks.

Joel

[Ograx]

Maybe that’s cause caffeine interferes with your sleep cycles and your not getting as much of the type of sleep where you have more apnea’s?

Anything is possible but I’d think majority of cases caffeine hurts especially the closer you get to sleep rather than helps.

I drink caffeine when I wake up at 6am then none for rest of day. Go to bed at 9.

I did stop for awhile to see if it helped but noticed no difference.

[Julie]

I suppose it could increase GERD (acid reflux) depending on how much you drank... GERD''s common with apnea.

[zonker]

Does coffee help or hurt your sleep apnea, as far as your AHI numbers? Have you noticed a difference when drinking more coffee as opposed to cutting back? Just wondering on how people are with coffee and their apnea - I have noticed that my numbers can improve when I drink more coffee, I do not really understand why this would happen but it does - thanks.

Joel

interesting. when i cut back my coffee intake, i wasn't doing it to reduce ahi, so i don't know what effect it could have had. i was reducing caffeine to see if it had any impact on my waking up at night.

it did.

will be interesting to see what others say.

[ChicagoGranny]

I have noticed that my numbers can improve when I drink more coffee,

Improve to what from what?

I have to ask because we get people who think going to 1.8 from 2.0 is an improvement.

Please also mention which type of events are showing "improvement".

[chunkyfrog]

It must be the caffeine that makes people drink coffee.
It certainly is not the taste.
When I see twenty pump bottles full of add-ins, it is apparent that
people go to great measures to cover up the actual taste.
When that occurs, one can only conclude ADDICTION.
Of course, it is a cheap remedy for migraines. (a common symptom of caffeine withdrawal)

[ChicagoGranny]

It must be the caffeine that makes people drink coffee.

I started out that way. The caffeine gave me some extra zip.

But, as I got older, the caffeine had to go. Learning to sleep with CPAP was hard enough without having "zip" in my system.

Nowadays, I enjoy a good, hot cup of black decaf or espresso decaf. It's an acquired taste.

[chunkyfrog]

Acquired taste . . . Like pickled herring, blood sausage, and jellied pork hocks--YUM, YUM.
The bullfrog hooked me on some wonderful Ukie cuisine.

[Ograx]

I used to drink light roast black coffee that was so strong it made other people sick.


I liked the taste but I was definitely in the minority.

[JayDee]

It could also depend on the person's tolerance. Coffee has never made me jittery or "awake", but tends to relax me. I also never got a "sugar-buzz" as a child or adult. Sort of wish I could so I could relate, but nope.

If I'm drinking a cup late, usually on a cold night, I'll add a scant spoon of hot chocolate to my coffee to pretend it's a mocha... If I over-do it, it's not the caffeine that wakes me up, it will be my bladder.

-JD

[ChicagoGranny]

If I over-do it, it's not the caffeine that wakes me up, it will be my bladder.

That effect could well be the caffeine.

Caffeine may promote incontinence through its diuretic effect, particularly in individuals with underlying detrusor overactivity, in addition to increasing muscle contraction of the bladder smooth muscle. Caffeine may also affect bladder function via central micturition centers, including the medial preoptic area, ventrolateral periaqueductal gray, and pontine micturition center.
https://www.spandidos-publications.com/ ... .2014.2646

[jnk...]

Coffee, early in the day and within reason, can help alertness among those untreated for sleep disorders. Some of them consider that helpful.

But all drugs and drug-like substances have some effect on sleep. For many, those effects don't matter enough to them to change their habits and preferences. But if the effects do matter to someone, the effects can often be lessened by having coffee only very early in the day.

For those with more than the usual sensitivity to caffeine, though, even a half cup early in the morning will lessen the quality and effectiveness of their sleep the next night. I believe that this sensitivity can be more common than people usually think. So if anyone who optimizes PAP therapy still has significant sleep problems and asks me what I suggest, I suggest he or she try cutting out all caffeine and alcohol for a few weeks just to see if sleep time and the restorative properties of sleep improve. If not, a person can always resume the previous habits. It is just something to try for finding out what might or might not be the case.

Any substances that promotes light sleep is also capable of suppressing some deep sleep and REM. That can show up in numbers as less AHI in home treatment machines. On the other hand, for others, light sleep promotes for them the in-and-out-of-sleep problems that cause sleep-wake junk (the dreaded SWJ), which can destroy and complicate AHI numbers reported by home treatment machines.

So I believe effects of drugs and drug-like substances can be highly variable and individual, much as physical pain and emotional trauma can have differing effects on various people individually, during sleeping hours and waking hours alike.

Then again, I rarely have any idea what I'm talking about. That's why my posts sound like this. Fortunately, few here ever manage to make it all the way through to the end of most of my posts anyway.

[Janknitz]

I wean myself off of caffeine every year for 1 month in preparation for a dry fast, under the theory that the headache won't be so bad if I'm not in caffeine withdrawal (TBH, it doesn't help!).

I notice absolutely NO difference in my already very low AHI when I do this, but I sure feel like dirt in the mornings when I'm caffeine free. I need my drug! OTOH, I'm sensitive enough to caffeine that if I drink it late in the day it's a guarantee that I will NOT sleep at all. So whether it might help my AHI or not is kind of moot if I'm not sleeping.

[jnk...]

I wean myself off of caffeine every year for 1 month in preparation for a dry fast, under the theory that the headache won't be so bad if I'm not in caffeine withdrawal (TBH, it doesn't help!).

I notice absolutely NO difference in my already very low AHI when I do this, but I sure feel like dirt in the mornings when I'm caffeine free. I need my drug! OTOH, I'm sensitive enough to caffeine that if I drink it late in the day it's a guarantee that I will NOT sleep at all. So whether it might help my AHI or not is kind of moot if I'm not sleeping.

I have a number of working friends who just can't figure out why it is that they always have headaches on the weekends when they catch up on their sleep by sleeping in. When I point out that on work days they drink about three cups of coffee first thing early in the morning and that sleeping until noon on the weekends would obviously be likely to cause serious caffeine-withdrawal symptoms, they come to realize in that moment that they should never, ever tell me anything and expect the "oh you poor thing" response they were hoping for instead of my irritating problem-solving approaches to the suffering of others around me.

[Janknitz]

they come to realize in that moment that they should never, ever tell me anything and expect the "oh you poor thing" response they were hoping for instead of my irritating problem-solving approaches to the suffering of others around me.

Jeff, OMG, that's so ME!!!

I am on several forums for various medical conditions, and I refuse to give whiners the "oh you poor thing" treatment. They get really pissed when I tell them they need to do something to take charge of their own health instead of whining that the doctor who has them on 8 different meds isn't paying enough attention to them. Nobody appreciates me, I feel so lonely.

And yes, caffeine withdrawal is REAL. That religious fast made a believer out of me. A woman sitting next to me in religious services FAINTED in the early afternoon of the fast and had a mini seizure that her doctor concluded was caused by caffeine withdrawal. I try to limit my caffeine daily to one 12 oz cup of coffee in the morning (big mug) but I don't want to be that person one day so I take my annual caffeine weaning seriously.