I hope the lithium goes well for you. I was really afraid to start it but it was a great drug. It helped me a lot, especially with rapid cycling. Going off it was a really hard decision because when we had tried going off in the past I had nearly immediately had episodes. But I had my 3rd toxicity last year and so after 12 years it was time to say good-bye. Unless I was toxic pretty much the only side effects I had was thirst (and I gained weight but that's true with every psych drug I've been on pretty much). I did eventually have to take an additional med to maintain my electrolytes as it was flushing too much out of my system but that wasn't a problem either and also isn't very common.

It really did help me though.