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8. “Sure, continue consuming caffeine, if you like.”
Many adults with ADD/ADHD have lifelong love affairs with coffee or caffeinated sodas. Yet caffeine may exacerbate the effect of stimulant medications, creating anxiety and heart palpitations. You can’t determine what’s causing these side effects -- the stimulant or the caffeine -- unless you gradually wean yourself off caffeine before starting stimulants. (Try to do it a few days in advance, though, so that you don’t mistake a headache due to caffeine deprivation for a medication side effect.)
“Some people can tolerate stimulants and still have some caffeine,” Weiss says. “For others, caffeine interferes by creating or exacerbating side effects, making it impossible to increase the stimulant to therapeutic doses.”
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