time for another caffeine pill?

July 15, 2009 10:23 AM

Time for another caffeine pill? So I just popped one (200mg) about an hour ago and can't really feel any difference; I wouldn't think twice about having another cup of coffee but was wondering if it's okay to have another of the pills.
posted by zeoslap to health & fitness (11 comments total)

I wouldn't...and that's coming from a guy that used to take so much caffeine on road trips that he could feel his fingernails grow and gums recede.
posted by notsnot at 10:28 AM on July 15

200mg is equivalent to a strong double espresso, or about four cans of diet coke.

If you're happy to double that amount then go ahead.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 10:31 AM on July 15

A tall Starbucks drip coffee is about 240 mg of caffeine. That might help you gauge accordingly.

Keep in mind that if you normally consume lots of caffeine, you're going to be more used to it and not feel the effects as much.
posted by zachlipton at 10:31 AM on July 15

An 8 oz coffee has about half the caffeine of your pill.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/an01211
posted by sanko at 10:31 AM on July 15

Yea, I wouldn't suggest it. If it turns out to be too much, you will probably be so jittery that you couldn't get anything done anyway.

How about taking a brisk walk or jog to "get the blood flowing"?
posted by cabingirl at 10:33 AM on July 15

So you'd be at about 8 Diet Cokes or 4 regular coffees if you took another one. That doesn't sound ridiculous to me — if you're okay with that level of caffeination, go for it I suppose.

Maybe break the pill in half or quarters and do a little at a time?

Assuming you're going for "alertness" and not "I want to run my brain balls-out for the next four hours and then crash," it's better to do small doses of caffeine spaced over the time you want to be awake, rather than one large dose at the beginning.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:35 AM on July 15

When phrased as 8 cokes I think I'll pass :) Brisk walk it is. Thanks :)
posted by zeoslap at 10:41 AM on July 15

The LD50 for caffeine is ridiculously high (192mg/kg for rats, which is 13g or 65 200mg pills for a 150 lb person). I used to regularly down 10+ of the 200mg at a time, although I definitely felt the effects of that.

That said, my tolerance for caffeine right now is also ridiculously high. Even if I do a 1 month+ purge of all caffeine, I'll only feel a kick from normal amounts of caffeine (2 cups of coffee daily) for a couple of months, and then it goes back to being something I can't notice. If you keep upping the amount of caffeine until you can feel it, you will always be upping your dossage.

A dose of caffeine should be effective for 3-4 hours. Which means that if you don't want to get on the pill treadmill, you don't want to re-up after 1-2 hours.
posted by nobeagle at 10:55 AM on July 15

Digesting caffeine in a pill is very different from drinking tea or coffee. A hot liquid is absorbed better and faster, not to mention other chemicals in tea and coffee which have a stimulative effect when combined with caffeine. Id stick with liquids.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:17 AM on July 15

You may just be too dry to let the caffeine properly permeate you. If you want to feel the effect of the one you've taken, you should drink a pint of water, and do about five to ten minutes of stretching. The brisk walk is also a great idea, but I find that I often have to accompany caffeine with water to get the full feel.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:40 AM on July 15

Just anecdotally, I knew a 30-ish-year-old guy who drank a 2-liter of Mountain Dew a day, and his doctor told him he had "the insides of a 50-year-old." While I can't say I'm not a caffeine addict to some degree, I wouldn't mess around with higher amounts.
posted by IndigoRain at 10:40 PM on July 15