Post-Traumatic Stress
 

I have post-traumatic stress as the result of having been hit and nearly killed by an out-of-control truck when I was driving to work about 20 years ago. For the past few weeks, I've been doing pretty well. No panic attacks. No flash backs. No hallucinations. Suddenly, out of the blue yesterday, as my husband was driving us home from the grocery store, the hallucinations came fast and furious.

As we were leaving the parking lot, my attention would fall on one unoccupied, parked vehicle or another and suddenly it would be starting to back out into the path of our car. This happened about four times in succession. I knew, logically, it was PTS hallucinations but that doesn't make a body any less jumpy about it.

Finally, I redirected my attention to figuring out WHY I was suddenly having the experience and I realized I'd had 2 cups of coffee for breakfast--more caffeine than I've had in a long time. I'm curious if caffeine can, in fact, trigger PTS symptoms because it is a stimulant.

Is there anyone in the forum who experiences PTS, who might know if there's a connection? Thanks. For now, I'm going to stick to my one cup of coffee in the morning and NO MORE each day.

Too much caffeine will induce panic attacks for me. The definition of too much varies a bit, but generally if I stick to one coffee and one or two square of dark chocolate at most per day, I have no problems.