#honestly the pills don't really even help aside from make me anxious

[mass-convergence]

With Panera's recent ... issues ... I just want to recount (for the billionth time) when I OD'ed on caffeine:

It was right after my last midnight shift and I wanted to drive 6 hours to a national park because damn it I had 4 days off and I wanted to do something fun. Of course I was freaked out I was going to be sleepy on the drive and pass out in the car and die in a fiery crash.

So instead of being a reasonable adult and just taking a nap before I subjected myself to that drive, I did the super intelligent thing of just loading up on caffeine before I left. I took 200 mg of caffeine before my shift at 10 pm the night before. During shift I consumed at least two cups of green tea, ~40 mg of caffeine each. I don't remember if I also had a soda that shift but this was already more than I usually intake in a day. Got off shift kinda hyped to be going on the trip but also a little tired still. So I was like, "I should get some more caffeine in me".

Despite me having already consumed around 280 mg of caffeine (maybe more if I drank a soda during shift).

Green tea with my breakfast.

Took another 200 mg pill like a goddamn dumbass.

For those keeping track ... that's like at least 500 mg of caffeine in a 12 hour period for someone who maybe drinks a couple cups of calming Jasmine tea in a day (so generally 100 mg or less).

Now, I felt relatively okay as I left and started going down the interstate. About 30 minutes later I realize that I can't sing along to the song on the radio because I'm too busy feeling like I can't breathe. I didn't have one of those fancy wrist watches that log your heart rate but I can tell you that it was absolutely jackhammering in my chest as if I had sprinted a mile.

And it only got worse from there because I started obviously freaking out that my heart was going about 100 miles a minute and I was legit having difficulties catching my breath. I considered pulling over and maybe cancelling the trip to go visit an emergency room because holy shit I never felt like that before and I was seriously thinking I was having some form of a heart attack. But I'm an idiot and I kept driving even though I'm pretty sure I was dangerously close to potentially passing out at that point. Y'know. Because of the breathing difficulties.

I'm sure it went from like OD related issues to something akin to a panic attack because I was getting seriously anxious about my health at that point. I did finally start feeling better after about 15 to 30 minutes and then an hour or two later I was almost back to normal. I did get to my destination safely, ate the best Wendy's chicken nuggets I've ever had, and almost immediately passed out on the bed of the cabin I was at - legit best night of sleep I've ever gotten.

But uh yeah, that was 500 mg of caffeine in like 12 hours (I can't comment on if I'm like a healthy adult but I will say I don't have any diagnosed heart or BP conditions).

I can't fucking imagine what 500 mg in one sitting would do.

Like who the fuck approved the charge lemonade without:

at least putting some kind of extremely visible warning that it contained a shit ton of caffeine (no, "as much caffeine as our dark roast" is not a good label - put an actual mg amount ... people who are monitoring their intake probably will have an idea about how much caffeine they can consume)

maybe not making the damn thing refillable. Who needs refills of a drink that's got the daily recommended amount of caffeine in it for a healthy adult

maybe saying, "Hey ... should we even have this much caffeine in this drink?"

Because if you're drinking caffeinated stuff before you go grab your 30 oz cup of Panera Lemonade - like I think most healthy adults are - you're adding that caffeine onto the stuff you've already consumed. Which can certainly put you over the "recommended amount". Like it's just got too much caffeine period.