Whenever I drink espresso, I get a reaction where my ears and sinuses feel full and plugged. But I want to be able to drink espresso in Italy when I go. So I’m trying to figure out what I can do to stop the reaction.
Last night I read up and saw that caffeine is a diuretic, so I devised a plan to rehydrate after the effects started. Today, at lunch, I had an espresso.
12:30 Drank espresso
Sure enough, a while later
15:00 Ears and sinuses plugged up
Then I started the treatment
15:30 Drank Gatorade with 11% sodium
16:15 Ate cheese with 5% sodium
Nothing happened. I was still stuffy. I read a little more and found that recent studies say caffeine isn’t a diuretic. Suck.
New plan.
19:45 Still stuffy, crack open beer
19:55 Eat dinner—shells, eggplant, Parmesan
Sure enough,
20:05 Head cleared
Great, right? Nope.
21:15 Head stuffy again
Fail.
Posted by Mom on July 27, 2012 at 7:41 am
So I’m thinking you should just give up on expresso as you apparently have issues with caffeine overload! Or you need to hydrate prior to drinking the expresso! ok enough suggestions!
Posted by -J on September 26, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Maybe your “New Plan” didn’t fail. Maybe the beer (sedative) effect wore off after 1 1/2 hours. Try another beer next time ;)