Coffee

Hi! I'm starting my 2 weeks of Opti on May 30th. I have a question though about coffee - I see mention of decaf all the time, but it was not specifically stated to me that I should only drink decaf when I met with the dietician. Just wondering why/if it's better to stick to decaf. I drink about 2 cups of coffee a day (black), and hadn't planned on changing that during my pre-op, but if I need to, then I should get to weaning myself off of it right away since I don't want to go through withdraw.

The caffeine in coffee can cause ulcers in our pouches. Best to stick to decaf.

Good luck!

Tammy :)

Coffee is irritating to pouch, plus acts as diuretic. When i went through it was suggested to switch but not manditory. As post op coffee is very low on the lis****er and protein will take all your time to get in. Do you get headaches if you dont drink caffiene? Do you drink pop? Cola? If so stopping pre-op is a good idea. Will purge your system of caffiene and prevent withdrawal

Thanks Leslie! Coffee is the only caffiene I drink - I don't drink soda/diet coke. I stopped drinking coffee when I was pregnant & was okay with that, so I'm sure I'll be okay switching to decaf after surgery. I'll cut down on it leading up to surgery though.

At over 4 years out I still can only drink decaf tea or coffee.  For me it is the acids and pain regular caffeine causes whether it is tea, coffee or hot chocolate.  It is very irritating. If you start weaning off caffeine now you will be OK on decaf alone after surgery.  Start by replacing one third of your cup with decaf and work your way each wee****il you are only drinking decaf.  There are some very good decafs out there.  I buy my decaf coffee at Second Cup.  If you like tea, the Typhoo brand, while expensive, is excellent. You cannot tell the difference from regular tea other than no acid or irritation.   You will not be drinking coffee or tea at all immediately post surgery as they are not recommended for the first 6 weeks or so in any event. So you are going to have to withdraw.

I just had my surgery on Friday, and wondered this same thing while on liquids. So what I did was I allowed myself some caffeine on liquids, but I used those 3 weeks to cut back rather quickly. Since I drink my tea with milk (3 times a day), it was easy to cut it that way - but I found withdrawal a little hard - so I actually had diet pop twice...  Which I had given up well over a year earlier.  Then I changed to mixing my opti with an iced coffee with two pumps of cinnamon dolce when I needed it.  Either way, After 7 days of cutting back, I was fully off it.   Surgery went well. So I guess you can have it while on pre op diet, but you might not want to go through withdrawal if you haven't gone into ketosis before at the same time if you think you might have some issues like I had. 

I did not realize that you could still have coffee while on your Opti?  I had thought that when on opti you could not have decaf coffee to drink but you could use it in your opti to flavour it.   I am assuming if you can drink decaf then obviously no cream or sugar during the opti phase.  I guess I never really gave it much thought just thought I would have to give up coffee completely.