Merry Christmas to you all.
I have just had an excellent night's sleep, thankfully because the previous night was a disaster.
I already knew that chocolate is poisonous. The fact that dogs and cats should not have it is widely known, but some humans are affected too. I am one of them. The older I get, the worse I am affected.
The problem is THEOBROMINE and caffeine. I think that I have no choice but to stop eating chocolate altogether because it seduces me into having quantities that cause me problems. If I have one small piece of milk chocolate early in the day, occasionally, then I can get away with it. The trouble is, that at this time of year, chocolate gets into the house and is easily available. Theobromine can accumulate in the body, and my occasional morning nibble of chocolate had become a daily occurance.
This time, my final downfall was a triple chocolate biscuit. I ate it late morning, while out walking, thinking it would do me no harm. It was only 2 inches diameter, full of chunks of white, milk and DARK chocolate. But added to the one/two chocolates I had been having from a raffle prize, each day, my fate was inevitable.
I was tired when I got home, after a few disturbed nights (now I know why), so laid down for a while, but sleep was ellusive. At least I relaxed. I went to bed at the usual time, but tossed and turned, alert and my heart a little fast and erratic, until 2 am and got up to read. By this time, I realised what the problem was. At 3.30 am, I tried again and had a few restless hours of broken sleep, before giving up and hoping the theobromine and caffeine, would be out of my body by night and sleep restored.
I now know that people with asd often react more than normal to substances which are harmless to others. Theobromine poisoing is recognised in a small number of humans. Normally, you would have to eat large quantities of high cocoa chocolate, but the problem gets worse as you get older, and some of us are hypersensitive to it.
