Sleep Apnea Impacts of Caffeine, Coffee, Black Tea

[dreamstream]

I'm sure others have written about this but am just sharing a recent change which has had a huge impact on my sleep apnea.

Had to give up coffee years ago because of onset epilepsy symptoms. Temporal lobe epilepsy to be exact.

Cold turkey on coffee 6 years ago took away those symptoms to almost none.

Then I started drinking black tea, chai, 2 cups a day. Didn't seem to have an impact on the Temporal lobe epilepsy so I stayed with that. 

Last year was diagnosed with sleep apnea. Getting great results now on CPAP after one year finally and though last month I stopped drinking black tea and only drink green. Know green has some caffeine but I now feel much, much better. AHI has gone from .3 over the last 6 months to .12 in the last 4 weeks with no black tea. Was doing well as it was and that isn't a big drop but it is a 50% drop and better yet, I finally feel more rested in the morning. The black tea change seems to have had a big impact. Regularly felt dizzy in the mornings still for the first 6 months of CPAP but now the last 4 weeks without black tea of any kind and 100% use of CPAP at night and I finally feel like myself again. No issues with just green tea so far.

Just sharing in case others would benefit from making a change like this as well.

[mesenteria]

Thanks for sharing your observation.  I hope you won't mind a doubtful approach to your post...………..but..... ……...

If we can all accept that an appraised AHI well under 5.0 is indeed 'treated', and if we agree that your first figure of 0.3 is amazingly successful, how much better.....really....is the 0.12?  We're almost into the 'picking fly poop out of the pepper'.  Had you been skirting around 4-6 AHI, and then found that your figure falls to 1.0 or less with just the one change, we could perhaps give the nod to that very change.  But, we don't know what else about 'you' changed concomitantly, what you ignored that should also have been factored.  For example, without tinkering too much, most of us will find our own responses to treatment yielding nightly AHI's that drop considerably.  Over time, we adapt, and that adaptation, without altering diet, sleep times, weight, or medications, can result in declining and salutary AHI numbers.

It might be useful to go back on the caffeine and see if your numbers pop up again.  They might just due to the inherent bias you have in mind that caffeine netted you a 'benefit'.  Or, rather, that your deletion of it resulted in a marginally improved score.

Whatever, I like that you are taking charge, willing to keep an open mind, that you are willing to tinker and that you don't fear your circumstances.  You are merely attempting to find out what factors might contribute to your condition, and that can't be a bad thing.  So, good on ya! 

[slowriter]

If we can all accept that an appraised AHI well under 5.0 is indeed 'treated', and if we agree that your first figure of 0.3 is amazingly successful, how much better.....really....is the 0.12?  We're almost into the 'picking fly poop out of the pepper'.  Had you been skirting around 4-6 AHI, and then found that your figure falls to 1.0 or less with just the one change, we could perhaps give the nod to that very change.  But, we don't know what else about 'you' changed concomitantly, what you ignored that should also have been factored.  For example, without tinkering too much, most of us will find our own responses to treatment yielding nightly AHI's that drop considerably.  Over time, we adapt, and that adaptation, without altering diet, sleep times, weight, or medications, can result in declining and salutary AHI numbers.

He mentioned the AHI numbers, but mostly focused on the subjective symptoms (restful sleep, dizziness, etc.).

My hunch is that for some people, AHI numbers correlate more closely or tightly with daytime feel than for others.

[Marillion]

Thanks for sharing your observation.  I hope you won't mind a doubtful approach to your post...………..but..... ……...

If we can all accept that an appraised AHI well under 5.0 is indeed 'treated', and if we agree that your first figure of 0.3 is amazingly successful, how much better.....really....is the 0.12?  We're almost into the 'picking fly poop out of the pepper'.  Had you been skirting around 4-6 AHI, and then found that your figure falls to 1.0 or less with just the one change, we could perhaps give the nod to that very change.  But, we don't know what else about 'you' changed concomitantly, what you ignored that should also have been factored.  For example, without tinkering too much, most of us will find our own responses to treatment yielding nightly AHI's that drop considerably.  Over time, we adapt, and that adaptation, without altering diet, sleep times, weight, or medications, can result in declining and salutary AHI numbers.

It might be useful to go back on the caffeine and see if your numbers pop up again.  They might just due to the inherent bias you have in mind that caffeine netted you a 'benefit'.  Or, rather, that your deletion of it resulted in a marginally improved score.

Whatever, I like that you are taking charge, willing to keep an open mind, that you are willing to tinker and that you don't fear your circumstances.  You are merely attempting to find out what factors might contribute to your condition, and that can't be a bad thing.  So, good on ya! 

Very well said.

[mesenteria]

If we can all accept that an appraised AHI well under 5.0 is indeed 'treated', and if we agree that your first figure of 0.3 is amazingly successful, how much better.....really....is the 0.12?  We're almost into the 'picking fly poop out of the pepper'.  Had you been skirting around 4-6 AHI, and then found that your figure falls to 1.0 or less with just the one change, we could perhaps give the nod to that very change.  But, we don't know what else about 'you' changed concomitantly, what you ignored that should also have been factored.  For example, without tinkering too much, most of us will find our own responses to treatment yielding nightly AHI's that drop considerably.  Over time, we adapt, and that adaptation, without altering diet, sleep times, weight, or medications, can result in declining and salutary AHI numbers.

He mentioned the AHI numbers, but mostly focused on the subjective symptoms (restful sleep, dizziness, etc.).

My hunch is that for some people, AHI numbers correlate more closely or tightly with daytime feel than for others.

Yes, he did, but we find that people who report great results still feel terrible, unrested, cranky, and unwell months after apparently successful treatment.  It's a slow process that may have been heavily overlapped with his own experiments with caffeine.  That is to say, he may have begun, finally, to feel well only because of the 'kicking-in' of the PAP treatment, and it might have had nothing to do with caffeine or its absence.  But regardless, the very small event rate means the real benefit between 0.3 and 0.12 is nothing like the benefit from 4.9 dropping to either of those two numbers.