Central Serous Retinopathy: Going "Cold Turkey" Was a Bad Idea

One of our writers has had to deal with an eye condition known as Central Serous Retinopathy. Since we work with eye surgeons I asked her to write about it and agreed to post it on this blog. She has written a series of nine blogs on her experience with Central Serous Retinopathay.

This is blog post 8 of 9:

I have a tendency to really throw myself into solutions, especially health solutions. I felt like it was of the utmost importance to do everything that I could for myself to heal my eye and prevent the problem from coming back.

In my initial research I read personal accounts that stated very strongly that you must go completely off of caffeine. Telling me I have to give up coffee to save my eyesight is like telling me I have to gnaw off my own foot to save my life. A horrifying and ugly prospect, but I do have my priorities. Then again, I can write with only one good eye, but I'm not so confident about writing without coffee.

It isn't just about the one eye, though. Once you develop CSR, even if you heal up completely, it can come back and it can come back in the other eye. Healing the current problem is just one small piece of saving your vision. Preventing recurrence is crucial and it is a lifetime commitment. My other incentive was healing up as much as possible before visiting the retinal specialist so that hopefully they would not recommend laser surgery. This kind of laser surgery can save your vision, but it will cause some permanent damage in the process.

I have to admit that there was another element involved. I felt like I had to prove to myself that I had the willpower to do whatever was necessary to get well. I had to prove it to myself and everyone who was in my corner on this. It was the least I could do.

Dedication is an admirable quality, but please, remember to apply it was at least a small dose of common sense.

My mistake was going cold turkey on the caffeine. I know, knew, have always known that, like most things, you should step down caffeine intake, not just drop it entirely. Dropping caffeine can cause severe headaches. And it's not just the caffeine. Coffee is a complex substance. Unlike sodas, it has as many positive effects as negative ones, possibly effects that counteract the caffeine problems. When you drop coffee, you lose the good along with the bad.

Only you can decide if quitting coffee is right for you, but if you do, don't do what I did. After having recently tripled my coffee intake I gave it up overnight, and I paid for it. My second day without coffee was also a very bright and sunny day and it was the day after my trip down the mountain for more tests. I wound up with a terrible headache, centered around my affected eye, and the spot was the worst it had ever been. The lack of caffeine may have been exacerbated by the previous day's altitude changes (I went down 2,000 feet in elevation and back up in the same day), and the stress, of course.