3 ms·

Consuming that much caffeine is terrible for your heart. If you find yourself consuming a lot of caffeine regularly, you would probably be much better served b

by strbean 2mo ago

Consuming that much caffeine is terrible for your heart. If you find yourself consuming a lot of caffeine regularly, you would probably be much better served by Adderall. You can get the same stimulant effect with much less wear and tear on your body. If you want to put it to the test without breaking the law or going through the hassle of getting a prescription, you can try taking 1 or 2 Sudafed (the real stuff that requires ID), which I've found to be functionally equivalent to a low dose of Adderall. (The normal caveats about health risks of stimulants apply to this comment - avoid if you have a heart condition, etc.)

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
cess11 2mo ago
Why do you expect pseudoephedrine to be less nasty on the cardiovascular system than caffeine? Recommending going from caffeine to amphetamine comes across as rather weird to me. 'It seems you have trouble regulating intake of a weak stimulant most people have little issue with, how about you take one of the strong, seriously treacherous ones instead?'
- strbean 2mo ago
  > Why do you expect pseudoephedrine to be less nasty on the cardiovascular system than caffeine? I'm not advocating for substituting pseudoephedrine for caffeine, but rather using pseudoephedrine as a one time proxy for amphetamine to see how well it works for you. > Recommending going from caffeine to amphetamine comes across as rather weird to me. With respect for the potential for abuse and addiction, that's a good point. My suggestion comes from a firsthand account of an adult with undiagnosed ADHD who self medicated with grossly excessive coffee drinking. Their doctor suggested getting assessed for ADHD and making the substitution out of fear for their cardiovascular health. I assumed the parent commenter was overusing caffeine to self medicate for attention issues, but didn't think of the possibility that it was pure addictive behavior.
  - cess11 2mo ago
    Pseudoephedrine is very different from amphetamine. If you must push caffeine users towards something else, go for nicotine. It is quite well tolerated, techniques for cessation are abundant, and like caffeine it is a cholinergic and would not be moreish unlike amphetamine. For treatment of ADHD amphetamine is pretty much never the first reasonable option. It's reasonably among the last, way over there with meth, on the other side of reuptake inhibitors with a much nicer toxicological profile.
- sneak 2mo ago
  Amphetamine is no stronger or more treacherous than caffeine, when dosed properly. As someone with EXTENSIVE experience with both, I would say caffeine is probably substantially more treacherous.
  - cess11 2mo ago
    I'll necro this even though I've been away for quite some time because this is such a motorheaded jaw clenched dum-dum of a position to take. "When dosed properly" is basically a circular premise. When things are good, things are good. Great. Brilliant. This is the kind of solid ground we need for making judgements about psychoactives and health. The thing is this, this ideal world does not exist. If you raise the dose or take an extra dose of caffeine, what happens? You'll probably feel sick and correct. What happens with amphetamine? In the best case you inch towards euphoria. At worst, if you really hit it on, you'll get a rush like little else and then euphoria. Caffeine is very not sneaky, it clears the fog and you trivially find your equilibrium where you take roughly the same amount of a hundred millis per day. It carries very little risk for changes in personality and perception. Amphetamine is quite different. It affects confidence, behaviour and changes your perception so that the amphetamine starts to look like a solution to more and more problems. It does this in nefarious ways that usually aren't obvious to the newcomer. It's also way more potent than caffeine, therapeutic doses being in the few milligrams rather than hundreds a day. Perhaps you've eaten more pills than I have, but I'm sure you didn't pay as much attention as I have. I like amphetamine as a very sporadic recreational drug, but that's on a hiatus because I have kids that depend on me. I'd never take it on a casual basis because I'm not disabled in a way that makes up for the risks. And there are risks, for one it's neurotoxic due to excitotoxicity. How much can't easily be predicted but chronic exposure is unlikely to be safe in the sense caffeine is. As far as I can tell this is more pronounced with dopaminergic than noradrenergic effects, i.e. if this is the case then dextroamphetamine is likely worse than the levo enantiomer. Then there's the issue of mixing drugs. In many users amphetamine will not lessen or stop the consumption of caffeine.
tombert 2mo ago
I agree it's not good for my heart. I keep my caffeine intake considerably lower now, always less than the 400mg max that the FDA recommends, usually less than that. I'm not sure that adderrall is significantly healthier for the heart. I did take it for a bit but I found adderral to be unbelievably terrible. I would take a small dose at like 7am, and I still would have trouble getting to sleep at night, and when I did get sleep it didn't feel terribly restful. I was only on it for about a week and that was enough. Obviously if it works for you, don't let me take that away from you.
- strbean 2mo ago
  > I would take a small dose at like 7am, and I still would have trouble getting to sleep at night Was this an extended release verson like Vyvanse? I had an absolutely terrible time with that for the same reasons. If that was your experience with plain dextroamphetamine, totally sounds like it's just not meant for you!
  - tombert 2mo ago
    I tried the three big ones: regular Adderall, Adderall extended release, and Vyvance. None of them really helped my focus and all three really screwed with my sleep. Kind of ironically, it turned out that a lot of my focus issues were due to (at the time) undiagnosed sleep apnea. The caffeine and the adderall sort of became band-aids that covered up the real problems.
esikich 2mo ago
Good Lord no. Sudafed is nothing like Adderall and Adderall is nothing like caffeine, for starters. I was on a low 10mg time release dose of Adderall for about 6 years. I had a lapse of insurance and could no longer afford it. I weaned myself off over a month and the withdrawals were absolutely fucking terrible. Just fucking bad advice dude.
calpaterson 2mo ago
> Consuming that much caffeine is terrible for your heart. He's talking about 800mg, and I doubt it. 400mg is well known to be a safe daily level. I doubt by doubling it you will experience massive negative side effects. Here in Finland (possibly highest caffeine consumption per capita in the world?) there are people who have been drinking well over >1000mg/day for decades and life expectancy and heart health among the population is normal.

by strbean 2mo ago

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

cess11 2mo ago

Why do you expect pseudoephedrine to be less nasty on the cardiovascular system than caffeine? Recommending going from caffeine to amphetamine comes across as rather weird to me. 'It seems you have trouble regulating intake of a weak stimulant most people have little issue with, how about you take one of the strong, seriously treacherous ones instead?'

strbean 2mo ago
> Why do you expect pseudoephedrine to be less nasty on the cardiovascular system than caffeine? I'm not advocating for substituting pseudoephedrine for caffeine, but rather using pseudoephedrine as a one time proxy for amphetamine to see how well it works for you. > Recommending going from caffeine to amphetamine comes across as rather weird to me. With respect for the potential for abuse and addiction, that's a good point. My suggestion comes from a firsthand account of an adult with undiagnosed ADHD who self medicated with grossly excessive coffee drinking. Their doctor suggested getting assessed for ADHD and making the substitution out of fear for their cardiovascular health. I assumed the parent commenter was overusing caffeine to self medicate for attention issues, but didn't think of the possibility that it was pure addictive behavior.
- cess11 2mo ago
  Pseudoephedrine is very different from amphetamine. If you must push caffeine users towards something else, go for nicotine. It is quite well tolerated, techniques for cessation are abundant, and like caffeine it is a cholinergic and would not be moreish unlike amphetamine. For treatment of ADHD amphetamine is pretty much never the first reasonable option. It's reasonably among the last, way over there with meth, on the other side of reuptake inhibitors with a much nicer toxicological profile.
sneak 2mo ago
Amphetamine is no stronger or more treacherous than caffeine, when dosed properly. As someone with EXTENSIVE experience with both, I would say caffeine is probably substantially more treacherous.
- cess11 2mo ago
  I'll necro this even though I've been away for quite some time because this is such a motorheaded jaw clenched dum-dum of a position to take. "When dosed properly" is basically a circular premise. When things are good, things are good. Great. Brilliant. This is the kind of solid ground we need for making judgements about psychoactives and health. The thing is this, this ideal world does not exist. If you raise the dose or take an extra dose of caffeine, what happens? You'll probably feel sick and correct. What happens with amphetamine? In the best case you inch towards euphoria. At worst, if you really hit it on, you'll get a rush like little else and then euphoria. Caffeine is very not sneaky, it clears the fog and you trivially find your equilibrium where you take roughly the same amount of a hundred millis per day. It carries very little risk for changes in personality and perception. Amphetamine is quite different. It affects confidence, behaviour and changes your perception so that the amphetamine starts to look like a solution to more and more problems. It does this in nefarious ways that usually aren't obvious to the newcomer. It's also way more potent than caffeine, therapeutic doses being in the few milligrams rather than hundreds a day. Perhaps you've eaten more pills than I have, but I'm sure you didn't pay as much attention as I have. I like amphetamine as a very sporadic recreational drug, but that's on a hiatus because I have kids that depend on me. I'd never take it on a casual basis because I'm not disabled in a way that makes up for the risks. And there are risks, for one it's neurotoxic due to excitotoxicity. How much can't easily be predicted but chronic exposure is unlikely to be safe in the sense caffeine is. As far as I can tell this is more pronounced with dopaminergic than noradrenergic effects, i.e. if this is the case then dextroamphetamine is likely worse than the levo enantiomer. Then there's the issue of mixing drugs. In many users amphetamine will not lessen or stop the consumption of caffeine.

tombert 2mo ago

I agree it's not good for my heart. I keep my caffeine intake considerably lower now, always less than the 400mg max that the FDA recommends, usually less than that. I'm not sure that adderrall is significantly healthier for the heart. I did take it for a bit but I found adderral to be unbelievably terrible. I would take a small dose at like 7am, and I still would have trouble getting to sleep at night, and when I did get sleep it didn't feel terribly restful. I was only on it for about a week and that was enough. Obviously if it works for you, don't let me take that away from you.

strbean 2mo ago
> I would take a small dose at like 7am, and I still would have trouble getting to sleep at night Was this an extended release verson like Vyvanse? I had an absolutely terrible time with that for the same reasons. If that was your experience with plain dextroamphetamine, totally sounds like it's just not meant for you!
- tombert 2mo ago
  I tried the three big ones: regular Adderall, Adderall extended release, and Vyvance. None of them really helped my focus and all three really screwed with my sleep. Kind of ironically, it turned out that a lot of my focus issues were due to (at the time) undiagnosed sleep apnea. The caffeine and the adderall sort of became band-aids that covered up the real problems.

esikich 2mo ago

Good Lord no. Sudafed is nothing like Adderall and Adderall is nothing like caffeine, for starters. I was on a low 10mg time release dose of Adderall for about 6 years. I had a lapse of insurance and could no longer afford it. I weaned myself off over a month and the withdrawals were absolutely fucking terrible. Just fucking bad advice dude.

calpaterson 2mo ago

> Consuming that much caffeine is terrible for your heart. He's talking about 800mg, and I doubt it. 400mg is well known to be a safe daily level. I doubt by doubling it you will experience massive negative side effects. Here in Finland (possibly highest caffeine consumption per capita in the world?) there are people who have been drinking well over >1000mg/day for decades and life expectancy and heart health among the population is normal.