Bad energy drink?

[cracky-bracky]

So about 2 days ago I tried out a bang energy drink.

It was good and all and I was energized for a few hours but then i got heart pain, so I avoided drinking anything caffeinated. 

It doesn't hurt as bad anymore but now if I become even slightly active my chest hurts. (This never happened before I drank that energy drink.)

I'm definitely going to see a doctor soon, so uh, yeah.

 

Any ideas?

[Murdoch]

Different things interact with different people in different ways. I am reluctant to use energy drinks myself as my general belief is that using things to push the body past it's normal limits is going to someday have a potentially dire consequence. Moderate caffine intake is OK, but some people definitely overdo it and it creates a reliance. I remember I used to drink... uh.. Red Bull I think in my early 20s and if I missed a day, I got headaches that felt like someone planted an axe in the back of my skull.

That said, this does seem like a very extreme over-reaction to a single drink and would perhaps hint at an underlying issue. Good luck.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Most "heart pain" is actually just muscle/nerve pain in the chest caused by tension/stress/nervousness/exertion. People just get paranoid when they have any sensation in their chest because they associate it with the heart.

[Nevander]

Any energy drink is a risk. This is coming from somebody who sometimes drinks a Monster daily. I should quit honestly. Sometimes my heart will beat faster and I'll feel jittery. I suppose that's the intended effect but it can feel scary and if you have underlying health issues it can make things worse or even cause you to have other issues. My advice is, don't drink them.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Nevander

[Biodegradable]

I've heard nothing but horror stories when it comes to energy drinks. The amount of caffeine they put in them is insane and the amount of heart attacks they've caused in teenagers is pretty wild. I had a mutual friend drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of a football game because he drank those things pretty regularly. If you need an energy jolt, I've found a modest cup of coffee or soda does the trick. While I believe you can enjoy everything in moderation, there's something really fucked up with energy drinks, so much like Nevander I too recommend just avoiding them entirely.

[Gez]

I only drink non-sweetened black tea.

 

As for energy jolts, I'd rather recommend, whenever possible, a power nap instead.

[Doom_Dude]

I could use an energy drink every now and then but have never touched the stuff. I'll stick to my normal old cup of coffee.

 

Anyhow, hope everything checks out ok when you see the doc.

[HavoX]

I quit drinking energy drinks a long, long time ago. Last time I had one, it was on my 35th birthday, and it was a rare occasion.

[BaileyTW]

Sometimes it just be like that. I can handle drinking some energy drink but partly because I do have a (relatively benign and ignorable)heart thing going on and also because if I think its gonna make my heart do funky things chances are that'll just make it more likely to do funky heart stuff. But I am always tired so I just need the energy sometimes, no way in hell am I gonna mix the energy drink with something like alcohol though.

[HavoX]

5 minutes ago, BaileyTW said:

Sometimes it just be like that. I can handle drinking some energy drink but partly because I do have a (relatively benign and ignorable)heart thing going on and also because if I think its gonna make my heart do funky things chances are that'll just make it more likely to do funky heart stuff.

If your heart is like that, then you should NOT be drinking that stuff. Read the fine print on the damn label!

 

5 minutes ago, BaileyTW said:

no way in hell am I gonna mix the energy drink with something like alcohol though.

You show good judgement. I like that in you.

Edited February 21, 2022 by HavoX

[BaileyTW]

3 minutes ago, HavoX said:

If your heart is like that, then you should NOT be drinking that stuff. Read the fine print on the damn label!

and I tend not to. I think the last time I drank one was maybe 3 years ago after a flight and before that at max once per like time I'd be doing some all nighters for certain assignments. So only when I absolutely need to not be dead tired and when coffee was not an option and even then I mostly didn't drink energy drinks when that was an option.

[Hitboi]

I drink Mountain Dew (rarely now), but so far I have no problem with it. This might be a hint for a symptom of an underlying issue, or just an extreme reaction. I advise you to not drink them.
 

55 minutes ago, BaileyTW said:

no way in hell am I gonna mix the energy drink with something like alcohol though.

You have good sense, it would be a nightmare to do this.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Hitboi

[ImproversGaming]

There are lots of reasons to feel a pain in your chest. The vast majority are pretty lame, but some are not. Please prioritise seeing or talking to a doctor ASAP. Not sure where you are based but if there is a triage helpline that could be quick.

Let us know how it goes.

[Clippy]

Hi my name is Clippy and I'm a recovering energy drinkaholic

 

true story

 

A brisk walk every morning gives me more energy through the day than the fake energy I get from this

 

 

This shit is so nasty

 

but it's so good

 

but it's so bad

[Dweller Dark]

I once consumed Monster religiously, but I realized how awful most energy drinks are, and stopped/cut back. If I do have an energy drink these days, it's either Redbull or Java Monster/Monster Rehab, and only occasionally. Other times, I just drink a cup of coffee. 

 

I used to get jitters and some pains, was irritable, all that stuff. Now I have no jitters or pains, and much less irritable.

[Dimon12321]

I can drink several coffee cups in 1-2 hours, but energy drinks cause me headaches for some reason (not at once, but eventually). Not to mention, they don't boost me up that much. 

Just squeeze a lemon into a cup of pepsi and you're all set xD

Edited February 21, 2022 by Dimon12321

[Fletcher`]

I'll drink a monster or a volt once in a blue moon, but I don't drink them regularly anymore. not since 5 hour energy started giving me heart palpitations. Not great.

[DuckReconMajor]

I've been on and off of caffeine pills and black coffee for over a decade. 

But I feel nothing from energy drinks. Even ones with 300mg caffeine in it.

For a while I'd pour 5-hour energy into Monster drinks to freak people out. Really only felt the 5-hour though so it doesn't bother me.

 

One thing they do now is stick L-theanine in their caffeine products for a subtler, less jittery high. But L-theanine gives me mad anxiety LOL

[Mr. Freeze]

I hate energy drinks, taste like boiled cat piss. I love coffee and caffeine is my drug, but I don't have any past 6PM or I'll be wide awake all night. 

[out_of_service]

I love energy drinks! I've been drinking them for so many years now that at this point I'm sure my blood is carbonated and caffeinated lol. I work graveyard shifts so it's a necessity for me.

[BaileyTW]

6 hours ago, Hitboi said:

You have good sense, it would be a nightmare to do this.

A lotta people don't. Mixing energy drinks with shots of alcohol is like a pretty common thing for some reason.

[DarkIceCyclone]

I use green tea for energy jolts, when needed. The only time I used energy drink was to overcome exhaustion in college that I ended up quitting anyway.... let's just say I should have not done a lot of things. Drinking energy drinks was one of them.

 

The way your reaction was right after an energy drink does suggest an issue that needs to be consulted with a doctor sooner, rather than later. You may have overwhelmed yourself.

Anything below this line should be considered information to be further researched from other sources and not taken at face value.
 

Spoiler

Energy drinks work on whole body, not just heart muscles and blood streams. Caffeine works on every cell in the body, and so does Taurine. Except one is stimulant, the other is anti-stimulant (As far as my limited knowledge goes.) So that alone should be enough a warning to everyone, how much of a bad idea it is. But, we are humans, and if anything, we tend to make more bad decisions than good ones, when it is coming to our food and energy sources.

About your systems, I will reiterate, consult your doctor.

Spoiler

THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE!!!

Since there is no description of the pain (throbbin, moving, jolting, local, etc) I am thinking of muscle pain. Energy drinks to stimulate nerves a lot, with multiple stimulants at the same time. This is prone to cause muscle spasms. However, it may be from something entirely unrelated. But to rule anything serious out, you need to consult a doctor sooner rather than later.

 

 

You can relax your muscles with peppermint tea or valerian tincture - external use. Use cotton pads to apply. However it is not a cure, only a relieving remedy that can be used for conditions that don't neccesserely require anti-pain medication and it does not work for everyone.

TL;DR: Probably nothing serious, but either way, see a doctor, sooner, rather than later, preferably before the day is over. 

 

Spoiler

^{I've seen people who have been walking around with dangerous medical conditions before, some even not knowing about it before going to the doctor about something that at first seemed benign. And I've had people with insane pains walk into hospital only for it to turn out to be something benign...or well, atleast not life threatening (Some muscle cramps are extremly painful). Either way, stay alert, and the sooner you get to a doctor, the better, hopefully before the day ends.}

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by DarkIceCyclone
Translation correction and formating.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

If you really want caffeine, I'd recommend getting some cold coffee drinks, or some flavored caffeine mix to add to your water. That's what I do. That way you get caffeine, but not the other dozen ingredients added to crappy energy drinks. There are also legal drugs and herbs that are much safer that I use.

Edited February 22, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Pirx]

On 2/21/2022 at 5:15 PM, ImproversGaming said:

There are lots of reasons to feel a pain in your chest. The vast majority are pretty lame, but some are not. Please prioritise seeing or talking to a doctor ASAP. Not sure where you are based but if there is a triage helpline that could be quick.

Let us know how it goes.

 

 

this. it's not sure if the drink was indeed the reason for your chest pain. however, err on the side of caution. also, better leave those drinks aside, at least if your doc says that there's a risk involved. people react very differently to energy drinks. i've posted a pic of my balcony in the "what was your last purchase" thread, because for some reason i can drink them like water and not notice any effect. while a friend of mine gets jittery from plain coke. also drank plenty of bang energy and those weren't any different from monster or red bull. i gave up drinking them in large amounts for this fact, that they had little effect while being rather expensive over time. can't say i miss anything.

[BigBoy91]

Rip-It is the only energy drink that legitimately made me feel like I was gonna die. No wonder they're available at Dollar Tree for $1 a piece.

[Mayomancer]

You're not missing out by not drinking energy drinks, really. Have some plain coffee or citrus juice in the morning instead

[Gradius]

On 2/21/2022 at 10:39 AM, Biodegradable said:

I've heard nothing but horror stories when it comes to energy drinks. The amount of caffeine they put in them is insane and the amount of heart attacks they've caused in teenagers is pretty wild.

 

The thing about horror stories are that, well, they're horror stories. How better to get your teens to stop drinking sugary crap in a can then to spin outrageous stories of mass deaths? The truth is that they're relatively safe if still not very healthy. Millions of kids are drinking them daily, and any issues that arise are thus affecting vanishingly small percentages of drinkers. The chances of dying from smoking, alcohol, or other drugs is going to outweigh it by a huge amount. But not so many people decry alcohol for its ability to cause sudden death. Excessive use of energy drinks might be a risk factor for heart issues, but being a risk factor just means it worsens a situation, not that it is the direct and singular cause of a cardiac event. Slamming back several a day for years is likely to cause issues (perhaps from the massive amount of sugar that consitutes alone, or any number of other ingredients that might be bad for your kidneys when constantly drank to excess), but that's not a sudden event, and represents someone already taking very poor care of their body. The chances are if someone got into 'heart attack' territory (though heart attacks are normally the results of blockages, not merely unstable rhythms) the caffeine content would already have been causing severe palpitations or an unsteady heart rate. Major warning signs that would cause a rational person, even a young one, to slow down and perhaps see a doctor. The chances are these kids probably just had heart attacks. Energy drink is already rife enough that it'd correlate very easily, especially since overuse of them would be correlated even further in (overweight?) kids with poor diets and health, aka the at-risk group for heart attacks. Drug abuse, extreme exhaustion, or just poor diets that caused blocked arteries are all other things that might very well cause a teenager to have a heart attack, but when the narrative is 'monster is dangerous', that's what people look for. I've seen it in the minor hysteria over the brand Four Loko, where the mix of alcohol and caffeine together was considered such a fatal mix (either by virtue of the caffine inhibiting a person's ability to realise they're drunk, or by being taxing on the heart when combined with a depressant) that the drink was banned in many places, despite that supposed risk not actually being supported by actual research (and given I've yet to hear of the deathtolls arising from Jagerbombs, I don't expect to see any anytime soon). You see elements of the phenomena when considering how many hundreds of times more likely it is for the media to report a death due to taking ecstasy/MDMA versus a death due to taking paracetamol (50 deaths versus 200 circa 2014 in the UK - in 1997 this was actually a stunning 15 deaths versus 653 deaths prior to a reduction in the package sizes of paracetamol). Obviously the comparison isn't entirely fair due to one being used much more by many more people, yet a more common cause of death essentially never being reported lends the impression that one thing is more dangerous than the other by a much higher margin than it actually is. I'd wager alcohol or a lack of sleep has caused a thousand times the deaths that energy drinks could hope to among young people, yet that's a less dramatic headline than someone drinking four Monsters and falling down death, so the media reporting gives the impression of a risk disproportionate to the reality of an unhealthy but ultimately relatively safe product that would only represent a serious risk to a person's health in cases of pretty severe overconsumption over fairly long periods of time - and generally not because of the caffeine itself at that point.

 

Chest paint, most of the time, is just chest pain, not a heart attack. Get it checked out if you're concerned, and quit the energy drinks if they're a trigger for physical symptoms. For my money, too much caffeine occasionally gives me palpitations. That's not a serious sign of anything on its own, but it's an unpleasant enough side effect to get me to tone it down. But so long as you're drinking even halfway reasonable amounts, caffeine is much less likely to kill you then all of that sugar.

[HavoX]

@Gradius, for everyone's convenience, could you split your sentences into paragraphs next time? I can barely read that big wall of text.

 

Just a suggestion, TIA.

 

On 2/24/2022 at 4:46 AM, Mayomancer said:

You're not missing out by not drinking energy drinks, really. Have some plain coffee or citrus juice in the morning instead

yeah or just water

Edited February 26, 2022 by HavoX

[Nine Inch Heels]

On 2/20/2022 at 10:13 PM, cracky-bracky said:

So about 2 days ago I tried out a bang energy drink.

It was good and all and I was energized for a few hours but then i got heart pain, so I avoided drinking anything caffeinated. 

It doesn't hurt as bad anymore but now if I become even slightly active my chest hurts. (This never happened before I drank that energy drink.)

I'm definitely going to see a doctor soon, so uh, yeah.

 

Any ideas?

There may not necessarily be a direct link between the energy drink and your chest pain...

 

But you should avoid "energy drinks" all the same, because all they do is provide you with a sugar and caffeine kick, so you feel more "energized" for a short period of time, but once the "magic" wears off, you're actually less energetic than you would be had you not had an energy drink at all...

 

Also they're prone to causing kidney stones, if I'm not entirely mistaken, and kidney stones... ask anyone who's ever had one... That's pain that makes you wanna kill yourself, and there's no way around a trip to a hospital nearby, where you're gonna lay on a bench, hoping the pain killers kick in before you lose what little may remain of your sanity...

 

If you want energy, and in a much less unhealthy manner, go for bananas, if you like to eat them... have a coffee or an espresso here and there, and you'll fare way, way better than you ever could with any sugar-nuke you can buy at a grocery store...

 

 

 

[Philnemba]

I normally drink a flavored iced coffee as I rarely drink energy drinks due to most of them tasting terribly but when I really need one for work early in the morning I usually drink a Monster Java.