Experience:Caffeine (1G, oral) - Not doing that again

• Substance(s): Caffeine
• Dose: 1 gram
• Route of Administration: Oral (5x 200mg pills)

• Sex: Male
• Height: 5'8/172cm
• Weight: 130lb/59kg
• Date: Spring 2024

At this time, I was regularly consuming caffeine and had a considerable tolerance. I averaged around 500mg per day, spread out throughout the day. Previously, the largest dose I had in a short period was 600mg over 3 hours.

I have Tourette Syndrome. I also have ADHD, and I'm not necessarily sure how it's relevant, but I know people with ADHD can have different responses to caffeine compared to people without.

I was pulling an all-nighter, and I got the idea to take 5 caffeine pills (200mg each). I started feeling it after 15 minutes, and after an hour, I was very affected. I was completely unable to keep still and control my tics, and I felt very pent up, so I went downstairs. I was walking with my spine contorted and all of my extremities jerking violently. When I got downstairs, I quickly laid down on the couch because I was feeling light-headed, and started texting on my phone for a while. While laying on the couch, I was still ticking violently and unable to control my movement. Typically, I can suppress my tics for a while at the cost of discomfort -- I was completely unable to do that. I was also experiencing several non-Tourettic physical symptoms, including a very fast heart rate, sweating, and hearing and seeing static.

As for mental effects, I did feel very focused, despite being light-headed. When I was thinking about something, that was the only thing I was thinking about, I didn't get distracted. However, my thoughts would diverge into unrelated tangents quickly. It wasn't that I got distracted and that prompted me to get off track; it was more like the natural process of thinking about something and that leading into adjacent topics, except sped up. My thoughts weren't really words, they were more conceptual. This is more or less how I think normally, but I also have an inner monologue that I use when I'm trying to understand something. My inner monologue was gone, and it was just conceptual.

Eventually, I crashed hard. It was the most exhausted I'd felt in my entire life, worse than when I stayed up for 60 hours. I went from very energized to exhausted in about 30 minutes. I went back upstairs to my bedroom, and I could barely walk up the stairs. I passed out as soon as I got on my bed, not even under the covers, and I was out like a light. Normally I have insomnia and take about 3 hours to fall asleep. I slept like a baby for 16 hours, and when I woke up, I head a migraine.

Needless to say, this was a horrible experience with pretty much no benefits, and it inspired me to limit my caffeine consumption significantly. I did sleep very well, though.

Submitted by Spearmint