10 Coffees Down

Do you ever have days when you just feel you are a couple of coffees (or teas) down? Every day is like that for me. I was never much of a coffee drinker until I met my husband. He, being a rather sophisticated Europhile, having lived in Paris, introduced me to the evils of the coffee shop. Before this time I was strictly a mug of tea and 2 sugars sort of girl. Over the years though I have come to appreciate and enjoy some of the finer point of coffee; and could be seen visiting my favourite coffee haunts several times a week. Not for me the milky frothy version of a latte, oh no I'm talking hard core caffeine in the form of espressos, ristrettos and machiatos, and at a push cappucino with a double shot. Of all the national coffee chains my favourite has always been Caffee Nero, and was a hidey haunt of mine when I was out and about in Bristol with the excuse of working. Anyway what I'm coming to is that my bladder problems have somewhat put paid to this habit of mine.

" of course you are going to have to stop drinking caffeine you know"

"what do you mean?"

"Coffee, Tea, Coke, lots of drinks have it, and its a bladder irritant"

"Ah......."

Yep caffeine is a notorious bladder irritant par excellence. This is a bit of a pity to put it mildly. Not only do I love coffee, I also love big mugs of tea, and gallons of diet coke, and Id never even given the caffeine content so much as a thought. Lets face it, catheters, caffeine and over/incontinence don't mix, something has to give, and its not my bladder thats for sure. For a while I tried cutting back on my coffee intake, but with mixed results and I noticed that my bladder was leaking which is a bit of a problem when you are at work. It took me a while to realise this wasn't caused by volume, but by the fact that Id usually been drinking coffee before hand. To put it in a nutshell here, coffee causes my bladder to have spasms, and bloody hell before I know it I've wet myself!

So the only remedy has been to cut out caffeine completely, so I'm cursed day and night by decaf coffee and tea and even decaf coke. I can just about manage 1 cup of 'ordinary' but that really is my limit before disaster strikes! I know that there is a large variey of decafs on the market but the truth is its not the same. What I really want is that buzz you get from strong coffee, those slight palpitations when you've had one too many espressos, the slight tingling sensation you get, know what I mean?! But sadly its just one of many things that have vanished from my life.