[jodacola]

Everybody's physiology is different, but I drank a full pot of coffee every day, for about 15 years.

After Getting Older™, I was noticing more and more effects that I didn't like, so I made the decision to (mostly) detox off caffeine using decaf beans. Cold turkey would have destroyed me. I went with the following schedule:

* Week 1: 75% caffeinated/25% decaf beans

* Week 2: 50% caf/50% decaf

* Week 3: 25% caf/75% decaf

* Week 4: 100% decaf

At week 4, I entered a full failure mode I hadn't yet experienced, namely migraines that were untouchable by OTC medications. Only caffeine helped. I tried to get through the week to "be done" with the weening but couldn't. So...

* Week 5: back up to 25% caf/75% decaf!

* Weeks 6-12: decreasing caffeine by half each week (to the point I was measuring beans using my home scale).

After week 12, I was able to go without caffeine, and now I drink 1 cup of coffee and, if I'm feeling wild, I'll occasionally get an espresso.

My physiological dependence on caffeine was no joke, but I feel a heck of a lot less anxious and jittery after cutting it down to where I'm now at.

[Obscurity4340]

Seems like this would have been much easier if you used plain old caffeine pills at the denominations you wanted to work thru, easier to measure (split the tablets) and also removes the other pleasurable aspects like flavor of the coffee and pleasing aromas—those kind of subjective cues that compound the preference and addiction

Isnt what you're doing now basically—what it would be called for almost any other drug—"kindling" or something?

[robocat]

Tapering down using Caffeine pills (nodōz) has been really effective for me multiple times in the past.

I have found it tricky to find a good starting dose, and it gets a bit difficult to break tablets into very small amounts (1/10th pill) tapering down near the end. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417034

I would never try cold turkey again due to nasty headaches.

I've done it linearly over some weeks, but if anyone has tried non-linear tapering I would be interested to know what worked for you.

[vidarh]

You can get powder and a digital scale, and there are relatively low caffeine pills. Alternatively, things like dark chocolate might be easier to cut to small doses.

[robocat]

Good idea. I didn't know about caffeine powder suppliments (for sports). Scales and gel-caps are something else I wouldn't think of without context.

[jodacola]

Possible, yeah. I still wanted to drink coffee, though - decaf. I enjoy it. So, went the long route.

[randallsquared]

Hopefully you were using very specific decaf for which you knew the values. Decaf coffee beans in the US vary from nearly zero to 30 or 40% of regular. Various sites and articles claim that there's a legal requirement for 97% removal in the US, but others call that out as coffee myth.

[drcongo]

For about 8 years now I've been down to one caffeinated coffee per day, first thing in the morning. If I miss it, I have the start of a migraine by about 1pm. It's mad.

[vinc]

Yes completely!

I started drinking one small but dense cup of coffee every work day just after lunch to avoid being sleepy after the meal two years ago, and this year I noticed that I wasn't feeling good during the weekend, then I noticed that if I drank a coffee after lunch I'd be normal. Skip forward a few months, I notice now that if for some reason I forget to drink my coffee after lunch I wake up the next day with a migraine, each time.

I like the ritual of grinding my fresh grains and brewing my cup, but I think I'll move to decaf and a quick nap like I was doing before. The migraine is the proof of an addiction.

[Insanity]

I had to avoid caffeine for some time due to medical issues. I really missed the morning ritual of waking up slowly with a cup of coffee, so I replaced it with decaf coffee which satisfies the ritual part of my morning at least. Definitely a 'YMMV' thing and it wouldn't solve the headaches of course, but it at least makes the morning a bit nicer.

[lo_zamoyski]

> now I drink 1 cup of coffee and, if I'm feeling wild, I'll occasionally get an espresso.

FYI, unless we're talking double espresso, a typical shot of espresso contains less caffeine (up to half) than a typical cup of drip coffee.

[jodacola]

Yeah, double (and I realize now my original statement wasn’t clear: that’s an occasional espresso in addition to my daily single cup of coffee in the morning).

[neutronicus]

Did you try Excedrin? It has some caffeine in it.

It does seem to be especially helpful relative to just Tylenol for me as a migraine sufferer. Specifically for helping to disperse the aura.

[jodacola]

That was the only OTC I avoided, specifically because I was trying to tightly control and titrate down the caffeine dose (granted, measuring beans isn't precise dosing, but I didn't want to blow my work out of the water by throwing some Excedrin into the mix).

[DANmode]

> disperse the aura.

What’s this mean?

[jodacola]

Migraine auras - the additional disturbances that can accompany the pain (or, in some cases be present without the pain) [0].

[0] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22131-migrain...

[DANmode]

Thank you!

[antod]

I don't get migraines very often (once a year maybe), but the first aura was very strange not knowing what it was.

For me they start out as a bright point of light then spreads out into an expanding shimmering arc of rainbow colors. Sometimes the vision inside the arc is ok, other times it is kinda missing. The headache usually comes on as the aura is fading out. Sometimes I get an aura without the migraine.

[neutronicus]

Visual disturbance.

I get a blind spot near the center of my vision that looks a bit like what you see when you rub your closed eyes. It gets large enough to mostly obscure faces and prevent reading