Always trust yourself! Listen to your body! Doctors are just the people you went to high school with. Do not put all your trust in them.

Lithium toxicity doesn't always show up in the blood work. You can have therapeutic levels and be toxic. This happens when your body is trying to compensate and absorbs it into your tissues. I know, I was toxic for 4.5 years and my blood levels were always good. My docs didn't pay attention to my clinical presentation and what I was saying. But, I trusted them and wanted to do the right thing and listen to them and take care of my mental health. Never put that much trust into someone who spends a few minutes with you every couple of months even if they have known you for years, like mine did.

I ended up at the Mayo Clinic with encephalopathy, involuntary jerking, kidney dysfunction, cognitive deficits, respiratory depression, allergic reactions, muscle spasms, etc and they said, "but she looks fine." That is what happens when doctors don't want to take responsibility for poisoning someone for so long and causing damage to her body. Yes even the great Mayo is unethical at times. They have refused to help me with my muscle and joint problems and won't put in writing what happened. Luckily I recorded my visits so they will have a hard time explaining themselves in court.

Do not end up like me. Question everything and everyone who you are trusting your brain with. They do not have to live with the consequences.

Ironically, I was misdiagnosed. They had pathologized a normal human behavior and gave me medication which induced mental illness. Then they gave me medication to cure what that medication was causing until I couldn't sleep anymore and told me I had narcolepsy and medicated me for that. I didn't have narcolepsy...I was being poisoned and therefore wasn't getting restorative sleep.

Our culture is good at pathologizing normal behavior. It is ok to be different.

Our healthcare system is not designed where doctors develop empathy for their patients, quite the opposite. You are ultimately responsible for your health and should consult healthcare practitioners with different training before putting your life in someone's hands.

I recommend reading this book written by a doctor: Don't let your doctor kill you.

This happened to me and I'm a highly educated professional...