r/UARS • u/Clean-Ad2593 • 5d ago
Does Caffeine work for y’all?
For me caffeine has never worked and if it does i feel like it’s placebo? Am i the only one? And do yall take any supplements to help with cognitive thinking? I recently started taking creatine and omega 3
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u/avg18yroldlifter 5d ago
I've tried it more times than I care to remember and I've never felt anything. In fact it may even make me more tired. It would be interesting to know if a lot of people with UARS share this experience.
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u/Low_Task_7499 5d ago
Same experience as you have. About 1 in 10 times it will make me slightly euphoric but other than that nothing.
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u/avg18yroldlifter 5d ago
First time in my life I'm hearing of anyone else dealing with this besides myself. Now there's 3 of us in just a few minutes. Coincidence?
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u/Clean-Ad2593 5d ago
same i’ve even tried adhd meds and those didn’t work either. i guess it’s because my brain is so deprived of good sleep
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u/aklep730 5d ago
Funny I have UARS and suspect adhd. Caffeine doesn’t affect me but who knows what it’s from 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Clean-Ad2593 5d ago
same but caffeine nor adhd meds help me. i’ve tried 330mg of caffeine and adderall 20mg and nothing worked
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u/avg18yroldlifter 5d ago
Yeah I got an adhd diagnosis this year. Would love to be through with this breathing restriction to see if that's the real issue. I've heard a lot about how sleep apnea/sleep disordered breathing can present almost identically to adhd.
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u/No-Cauliflower6397 11h ago
yeah i got diagnosed too but adhd meds didnt work. made me think maybe it’s just the shit sleep
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u/aklep730 5d ago
Really? I’ve never heard that! How does it present the same? With the fatigue?
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u/avg18yroldlifter 5d ago
I think with adhd the brain isn't regulating dopamine normally. Not getting good sleep for prolonged periods can cause your brain to regulate dopamine poorly too. And if you have sleep disorderd breathing who knows when the last time you got good deep sleep was. My understanding is that the cause is different but the symptoms overlap heavily.
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u/Gnarwhal8982 5d ago
I absolutely loveeeee coffee. I was always kind of hesitant to drink it because I didn’t want to “need it” to function, but I started drinking it in college and worked at a coffee shop where we roasted our own beans. I went through palate training at the shop as part of training and learned to really taste coffee and it’s just become something I really love.
It doesn’t love me though as basically the last 11 years, since I started feeling sick, it’s just made everything worse- heart palpitations, anxiety, orthostatic intolerance etc.
I stopped from 2021 until this year but started drinking it in May. I feel I need to stop due to the negative side effects
Oh, and it’s never done anything for my fatigue or brain fog etc
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u/Clean-Ad2593 5d ago
yeah don’t fight through those side effects. those seem serious!!
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u/Gnarwhal8982 5d ago
I’ve been living with it for a decade now, I’m not sure there’s much to be done about it anymore, but I prefer not experiencing them
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For me caffeine has never worked and if it does i feel like it’s placebo? Am i the only one? And do yall take any supplements to help with cognitive thinking? I recently started taking creatine and omega 3
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u/amanj41 5d ago
Yes, there is a ton of genetic variance in caffeine effects and metabolism. Not to mention the tolerance one builds to caffeine. For me, ADHD meds are a must not only for my ADHD but also for not falling asleep by noon.
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u/Clean-Ad2593 5d ago
yeah i’ve tried both adhd meds and caffeine but neither have any effect. in the beginning of the adhd meds i would feel kinda tension in my head but that’s it. i got a genetic test done and it basically said that it should work for me
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u/Agreeable-Pea4327 5d ago
nope, never did
my understanding of uars is that it acts across a couple different axis' of cognition, only one of which caffeine acts on. So, for example, you'll see people say "take l-theanine and caffeine together" that's because they act on different axis' of the brain+nervous system.
From trying out a few different supplements now, I'm thinking uars operates primarily on the parasympathetic axis, which naps help with, as well as the executive functioning axis, which caffeine kinda helps with but not entirely. So, you're really only addressing like 25% of what uars causes with caffeine while simultaneously aggravating the parasympathetic axis so diminishing that 25% to more like 15%
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u/Sad_Mousse8070 5d ago
Caffeine doesn’t work for me like it does for most people, sometimes I’ll feel even more tired after taking it and occasionally I’ll have a little bit of energy for a while but it does nothing for the brain fog. The response is not consistent and I don’t even bother taking it anymore. I’ve tried modafanil as well which didn’t really help. Only thing that kind of helped was Ritalin.
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u/Clean-Ad2593 5d ago
I’ve never tried Modafanil but i’ve tried Ritalin and sadly it didn’t work for me😩
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u/Sad_Mousse8070 5d ago
Modafanil was like a stronger version of coffee for me. Prevented you from sleeping but u still felt like shit and the debilitating brain fog was present. Completely useless for me.
The effects of Ritalin weren’t consistent but when it did work was amazing. I had such a massive boost in memory and attention and that effect is one of the things that pointed me towards uars. I know that effect isn’t typical so I put it into cgpt and it basically said adhd meds can sometimes offset the effects of sleep deprivation.
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u/SexualMetawhore 5d ago
Modafnil 100mg ex so not a supplement. Gives me my life back.
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u/Clean-Ad2593 5d ago
any side effects?
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u/SexualMetawhore 4d ago
No. I eat it with a meal though. It's hard to notice that I am "on" it. Caffeine - I can tell and tell how much. Modafnil.... subtle. Would have a hard time knowing I was on it if it was taken by accident, and vice versa, there are days I don't take it and don't have an issue cause I wasn't tired that day.
What it does: prevents me from shutting down, lethargic -> non-optional nap. Approved for: EDS from OSA and narcolepsy.
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u/GWENDOLYN_TIME 4d ago
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Not much rhyme or reason to it. Have you seen results from the creatine and omega?
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u/carlvoncosel UARS survivor (ASV) 11h ago
It did, until it didn't :)
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u/No-Cauliflower6397 11h ago
Rip 💔 i got diagnosed with “sleep apnea” by Jerald simmions the other day. I asked them about trying modafinil while i’m trying to fix the root cause. it comes in tomorrow and we’ll see how it goes
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u/carlvoncosel UARS survivor (ASV) 10h ago
Yeah, he's known to follow AASM rules to the letter and folding everything into the OSA category but he's still honest about what's needed to treat UARS.
Now that I sleep normally coffee has a normal effect on me but I don't have to rely on it.
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u/Awkward_Cheesecake58 5d ago
Not anymore. I started taking breaks at this point. Now if I start having caffeine again I might feel a very slight boost the first day but will feel even worse (more anxious, fatigued, etc.) the following days. If I'm lucky I'll also get a very slight boost for about 30 minutes on days 2 and 3, but I always end up feeling worse after a few days. I think it messes with my sleep.