I'm finally going to do it. Or at least give it my best shot. I'm going to start weaning myself off lithium. I'm going to try to do it slowly, but since I have it in 300 mg capsules it might not be as slow as I'd like. I think I will take a month to get of of it. We'll see how well I can tolerate 600 mg instead of 900 this week.

I'm excited as it's been seven years and I just want to reach my goal of being med free. I'm nervous too that I might fail, but I am confident in my skills that I can do this now. I'm back at yoga, Sunday was my first day back, and I paid the price for not going for a while. My body is sooo sore I can still barely move haha, not gonna do that again.

I know if I need the lithium again I can always go back to it. But I really want to give this my best efforts.

[Confusedinomicon]

Wishing you all the best luck!

Thank you Confused, I appreciate the support to do this!

This will be the sixth med I have weened off this year. I can't believe I actually got off five meds already. And it has been the best year for me and bipolar so far.. I'm excited to see how I feel with no medication in my system. I also want to see a clear picture of how gluten free effects my moods which I cant really get a clear picture while I am on meds still.

I was one person who when I first came to PC always said I would not make it without my meds. I really believed that about myself, but I think I can do it. It still sucks that I don't have my pdocs support or help, but it is what it is. I know with bipolar 1 he doesn't have high hopes for me that I can manage without meds.

[Trippin2.0]

Wishing only the best results for you my friend you've worked über-hard to get to this point.

[faerie_moon_x]

Good luck going off of it.

I didn't wean. Just stopped. I didn't do it on purpose though. I just kept forgetting to take it. I'm terrible with taking meds, I always forget. That's why I'm on an IUD now, too, because I forget. Even a daily vitamin, I forget.

I didn't like it when I was on 1200 mg Lithium wasn't too bad at 300 mg, but stopped working, then up to 600 mg still wasn't working, then they put me up at 1200 mg instead of 900. But it made me so thirsty and shakey. And since I was thirsty I always had to pee.

[moremi]

Good luck to you Anika! Im sure you will do fine with everything you have learned and your yoga. It seems you have studied up and are prepared. I am currently weaning off meds myself. I am only on zoloft and abilify and I am currently coming off the zoloft down from 50mg to 25mg a day. I believe we can do this. I believe its a lot of mind over matter too. I know much has to do with chemicals but a lot has to do with outlook as well. I believe having a positive attitude and outlook can take us very far with living a life without medications. I hope to one day be med free. Relying on exercise, diet and meditation and therapy. I think we are on the path to recovery. Good luck my friend.

[BuggsBunny]

Anika,
you have my support, too. I hope this works for you, and that you can actually go med free. I've weaned myself off one psych med and cut the dose of another down to half, and I've managed to go off the heavy narcotic pain killers I was on all winter, down to just Vicodin. (Which may seem like a lot, but is small compared to the oxycontin I was on for the past year) I mostly only take the V. at bedtime. My next goal is to wean myself off the sleeping pills, but I want to wait til school is out to do that, as the rebound insomnia will be tough to handle.

So when things are hard, Anika, just remember, there are others of us out here trying to do the same thing, and wishing good results for all of us!

~Buggs

[venusss]

I wish ya the bestest of luck. Be kind to yourself and you're gonna be fine.