Cure a monster headache with a brain freeze...
This time last week I did some research on how to kick the caffeine habit painlessly. Since I had been there and tried that before and it hurt, I hadn't had much success. I mean who wants to walk around with their head feeling like it's in a vise on purpose?
So before the big day - Decaf Rehab - I binged on caffeine. Last Monday, I had my usual cup of coffee, followed by a second cup while I read internet articles. I had a cup of Earl Grey with my lunch, and then I had a late afternoon cup of coffee while I tried to finish the emergency M&Ms that I had stored in the freezer. That was more caffeine than I EVER have in a day. As a result, I tossed and turned all Monday night and wrote my grumpy post for the week on Tuesday.
I opened facebook on Tuesday and this is one of the first posts I saw. I read it as, there is no life without coffee.
Way to start the day Kenya!
As if I wasn't already borderline evilish, because I threw the rest of my M&Ms in the trash, by 11:00 Tuesday morning I had a headache behind my ear.
By 3pm one of my eyeballs felt bigger than the other.
By the time I went to bed that night, I had a heartbeat in my head.
On Wednesday morning, marbles were rolling around in my head. I felt like I was balancing a basket on my head as I walked Christopher to the bus stop. As soon as I had my 50% decaf cup, the headache eased up.
Johnson's Believe It or Not, after that first night, it wasn't so bad.
On Wednesday we got a call to see if we were available to shoot a weekend basketball tournament. I had planned my decaf rehab around a week that nothing major was planned. So much for that.
Determined to stick with it, I dropped down the 25% a day early on Thursday to do for two days, and the weekend was going to be decaf only.
A tournament weekend is one of those weekends where I don't want to NEED coffee. There's so much rushing to get out on those two days, to gulp coffee and sweat while we are setting everything up. But I wanted the decaf because the essence of coffee makes me happy and I needed a happy start.
Post by Kenya G. Johnson.The weekend went well. I was prepared and bought some Ibuprofen just in case - and used it.
Today I released myself from rehab. I decided I would not have coffee at all. No decaf.
By 4:00 my capillaries were screaming. Apparently they were missing the pinch of caffeine that remains in decaf. I hadn't had a headache that bad since the first day of 50/50.
Christopher and I were out running errands. My headache was getting increasingly worse and I didn't have anything on me to take.
We went to Rita's, where I did not intend to give myself a brain freeze on purpose. But Christopher said, "Just try it", and by then I was desperate.
So I took a big spoonful of Italian ice in and pushed it to the roof of my mouth. I did not feel the brain freeze that I expected. But my headache eased off immediately.
I quickly ate more spoonfuls and by the time we left my headache was gone.
Hours later, my headache has not returned and was apparently cured by a brain freeze. Wow! This is a motivation to eat frozen grapes again, which I did not like because of the instant brain freeze.
Here's the thing... I really want my happy cup of decaf tomorrow but I am going to try this day again. I have some frozen blueberries; a mouthful of those will surely give me a brain freeze.
Disclaimer: Do try this at home
