Shortness of Breath after drinking coffe, what is the cause?

[TjIvory]

Lately, when I drink coffee, I have difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. This only began after being on hydrocodone medication for a back injury for a month -- 10mg 4 days a week for about 4 weeks.

Hydrocodone might have caused an acid imbalance in my stomach which coffee triggers to cause the issue. However, eating lots pizza or other food you think would cause the same problems, does not produce the same results.

I also had a fever recently while on hydrocodon, no cold symptoms, just a high fever. I decided to stop taking it. I also noticed the shortness of breath while I was taking the hyrdocodone.

Normally, I can drink aroun 300-400 milligrams of caffeine without issues, so what is the deal?

It's been about two weeks since I stopped taking the hydrocodone or coffee regularly, but when I do, I get shortness of breath.

The shortness of breathe is alleviated when I eat sugar of all things...

I might have hypoglycemica -- fair chance I say, but this is the first time I couldn't drink caffeine.

I'm wonderng if the caffeine is lowering my blood sugar causing the issues, this being exasperated by the hydrocodone use (which also lowers blood sugar). Is it a combination of stomach acid and hypoglycemia.

Any advice on what I can do for a differential diagnosis here?

I have no health insurance btw...

[bigtim810]

U

[tacolino]

Hi there. It could have something to do with your withdrawl from all that exercise? I mean you were gone from 5 days a week to nil???
I would not be surprised if your system is just reacting to this big change?
The caffeine may just be triggering something that sets it off?
You mention again about low blood sugar? Is this from testing your doing or is it just a hunch you have about it?
I have re read your last post. Looking on from the outside, I think your answers are 90% in the post.
Possibly you had a problem ongoing with coffee, but its only come to light now that your metabolising it slower with the huge decrease in activity?
Your diet seems to have changed also this last 3 months??? . .

[TjIvory]

Well, that is a good idea, I think, and might play a little role. I am indeed not doing much exercise at all until my back heals. Though, I stopped exercising over 3 months ago and could easily drink 300-400 milligrams caffeine a day, no problem, despite not doing too much exercise. This issue really only cropped up once I started taking the hydrocodone, recently!

I'm thinking the hydrocodone exasperated some condition, like GERD, and combined with my previous hypoglycemia. But I'm really unsure. You would think that I could drink caffeine all I want as long as I'm careful about my blood sugar, but eating a lot of sugar while drinking caffeine still causes the issue. Though, the difficulty breathing happens quite a bit afterwards before I'm about to fall asleep. Maybe I need to be more careful a bit.

I haven't done any test, but from all the symptoms I had with my blood sugar, after researching, it is spot on hypoglycemia.

I will do another test and see how it turns out, any other thoughts are ideas in the meantime are greatly appreciated.

[tacolino]

Hi there. The hydrocondone drug is a codeine based product and is fairly strong.

How did you think you were Hypoglacemic?  Were you doing blood sugar tests?
Do you have any other medical issues, especially with Kidneys or Liver?
Are you diabetic?

Maybe give the coffee a proper break? four or 5 weeks? Then try 200ml coffee and see how it goes?
Maybe its your chance to look at your diet and cut out coffee, no coffee no problem?
Its a bit hard I know, but it may be a worthwhile sacrifice.
Hows your general health? Do you get exercise, walking etc?

[TjIvory]

Thanks so much for your feedback.

I got a back injury lifting weights (sciatica) so I've cut down entirely on exercise and lifting. I used to run for more than an hour a day and another lifting and was on a very healthy diet so any muscles will stand out better.

I've had sciatica for about 1 year, and had two relapses. For the past 3 months, I've done very little exercising, mostly been sedantic.

I'm sure I have hypoglycemia. I feel dizzy sometimes if my blood sugar is too low, but once I eat some sugar, I'm good as normal.

I don't think I have any other serious health issues, no diabetes or liver issues that I know of.

For the back injury, for a while I was also taking Naproxen and I understand hydrocodone has acetaminophen too, which prolonged use could cause GERD that could cause shortness of breath, but, somehow the symptoms don't fit. It's only with coffee.

The only other thing I can think of is that a filling came off and my tooth has been hurting recently. it may be a bacterial infection of some kind, but, usually, I think there should be some swelling but there is none.

I will do some test soon to see if the shortness of breath happens when I have low blood sugar, hopefully that can help diagnose this.

I have been cutting back significantly on caffeine for about two weeks. I only drink 2-3 cups of decaf since then but problems still happen. I will probably drink two more cups soon to run the test and indeed, forced to take a break from it to see how it goes. It really is alarming to notice how dependent I've become to get things done on caffeine!