You, Me, and Caffeine

I have an incredibly low tolerance for caffeine. More than one cup of coffee and I'm one step away from looney toons. So yesterday afternoon, about an hour before I went running, I went in search of something for my headache. I couldn't find the ibuprofen anywhere. Last weekend, I moved all the medications around in anticipation of our upcoming home study update, and I had not a clue where I put the ibuprofen. I later found it in my underwear draw. . . which makes perfect sense . . .

In the meantime however, I did find a bottle of expired Excedrin migraine and made the rather stupid decision to throw back two of those bad boys. Excedrin migraine has quite a bit of caffeine in it. Can you see where this is going?

I threw on my shoes and went running, and while I was making a great mile pace, about halfway through my run I started to feel strange. I was a bit dizzy and a little nauseated. I chalked it up to low blood sugar and kept truckin'. Smooth move. I'm not known for using common sense. When I finished, I was incredibly dizzy and shaky. Again, it still wasn't clicking with me. I almost had to lay down in my neighbors' front yard. That would've completely normal behavior for me.

I made it home and forced myself to make and drink a smoothie thinking that would solve the problem. It didn't. Patrick had to leave to go to go to the church to work on stuff for Sunday so I was alone with Andrew trippin' on a caffeine overdose (although I wasn't aware of it). I made him a sandwich, and tried to make myself eat something, but I couldn't do it. I felt extremely sick and dizzy everytime I stood, and at that point I thought I was getting some kind of stomach virus.

I decided to let Andrew watch as much Phineas and Ferb on Netflix as he wanted, and went to lay in the bathtub and pray I wouldn't die. While laying there I was watching a National Geographic documentary on drug usage (yes, I'm weird), and it was at this point that it suddenly clicked. I wasn't sick. I had overdosed on caffeine. This has happened before. Last time, it was from excessive amounts of coffee (excessive being two normal size cups . . . I told you, I have no tolerance), and I was sitting on the bathroom floor shaking and extremely dizzy. So yeah, it finally occurred to me what I had done. While it didn't necessarily make me feel better physically, I at least felt better mentally. It would pass as the caffeine wore off. I forced myself to eat something which helped somewhat, and laid on my bed the rest of the evening which never happens. By 11:00 p.m., I felt almost normal.

The moral of the story:
#1 If ever you see me about to consume more than a small amount of caffeine in any form, be it liquid or pill, stop me.
#2 If ever someone tells you I've taken drugs, you can confidently laugh in their face. I can't even handle Excedrin migraine.