I had my labs checked a little more frequently when I was starting, to make sure I was getting to a therapeutic level. I think maybe at 2 weeks then a month and then I had them checked with every dose increase. Eventually it was supposed to be every 6 months but because my processing varied so much I always had it checked sooner that that while we tried to keep up. Between it and having history of lithium toxicity I had a lot of labs for a long time. And now I'm about to start having them every week for 6 months. At least it doesn't bother me at all!