Caffeine - Hepatitis Message Board

PA_Sundance · 07-19-2003, 08:06 PM

Hi! I never posted here before and have a question. I am a 1a and just did my 8th shot of Pegasys/Copegus treatment. My instructions say to drink 1/2 of your body weight in non-caffeinated beverages. Does that mean that I can't have coffee at all, even if I drink all of the water? I don't have a follow-up appointment until July 29. I can handle no alcohol, but no coffee is terrible!

peg_faith · 07-19-2003, 08:31 PM

Hi sundance
my husband was told to cut his coffee back to just a couple of cups a day ,not his usual 4-5 cups or more. he has done this and it sure beat the heck out of going through caffeine withdrawls while on tx. He has the occasional pepsi but mostly water and/or watered down juice.
this is what was reccomended to us .

bye for now, Faith

dianasaska · 07-19-2003, 09:05 PM

I like to kick my days off with a coffee, too.

Try having one cup of regular strength caffeine then on your second cup gradually cut it more and more with decaf. It is a good way to wean yourself off java.

1/2 of your body weight is a heck of a lot of fluid.

Be very careful that you don't deplete your body of salts and minerals, ensure you use soysauce in your food or supplement with bananas, fruit, salt (in moderation if you don't have high blood pressure) and multivitamins without iron in the formulation.

To calculate a typical amount of fluid to drink per day, divide your body weight in pounds by 8 and this is roughly the number of cups of beverages without caffeine. It will take a while to build up to this amount, do it slowly.

Note that an acquaintance was recently on some medication to remove salt in her system and she drank too much water, it caused her to have a stroke.

And another acquaintance drank 2 litres of a diet drink each evening and noticed severe shaking, and was actually hospitalized thinking it was MS. Apparently there was too much aspartame being consumed.

Diana

PA_Sundance · 07-20-2003, 07:18 AM

Thank you for the info. The recommendation is 1/2 of your body weight in ounces. It's a lot more than I've ever drank before. I never thought about depleting minerals, etc. It's great that people are willing to share what they've learned.

sean · 07-20-2003, 07:09 PM

Hi Guys--

I've posted some info on coffee (and tea) in the past, but to give a quick summary, there has been quite a lot of reserach into the effects of coffee or caffeine or both on the liver, and although it seems hard to believe, the only correlations ever discovered are the reverso of those for alcohol--That is, coffee does not correlate with liver damage or liver cancer. In fact, the results say the opposite. Some research on tea suggests a similar finding --maybe this doesn't surprise as much since tea's good effects on heart and cancer risks are fairly well known by now. But, the statistics for coffee and liver health are even stronger--in a positive direction.

So, be relieved that at least one vice is not really so, at least not as far as the liver goes.

Whatever your doc and you decide, that's the best for you, of course, but it's worth looking into in depth--you may be happily surprised.

sean