Lithium experiences?

Please don't kill me for starting another Lithium thread lol but I can't find another one that's already been started this forum is so active.

I'm considering Lithium as my mood stabilizer and I'm wondering what other people's experiences have been on this drug, good or bad. If you've been on lithium and have experiences to share please tell me. I want to hear about it.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Well I don't want to start off on a negative not but I hated lithium. It's the one drug that i refuse to take again. But really that's only because I went toxic twice. Both times I felt like a robot - I was so flat that even my friends were asking if I was ok. I couldn't participate when we were hanging out. I just sat there and stared. I also shook so much that you couldn't read my handwriting and I couldn't do my favorite hobby (beading). The pdoc I had refused to believe me because he didn't think anyone could go toxic off of just 900mg (I was only 100lbs at the time so that's why). I had to basically show him my hands shaking violently and demand to be taken down to 600mg.

When I wasn't toxic on it, it wasn't so bad, but I was constantly thirsty. If I couldn't drink (like when I was at work) I had to have candy or mints or something to wet my mouth until I could get to some water. And I also gained 20lbs even though I was borderline anorexic at the time and didn't eat hardly anything. I lost the weight as soon as I stopped taking lithium.

On top of all that, it didn't do anything for my mood. If it had worked, I might have been able to overlook the side effects. But as it stood it was useless.

BUT for a lot of people it's a life saver because it's the only thing that does work. So you can't know until you try.

Good luck! I hope it works better for you than it did with me.

I took lithium for about 10 years. At first, I saw noticeable results; a definite improvement. I was fortunate that I responded to this medication. Not everybody does.

It is a tried and true med, and many mental health providers believe strongly in it. That is, if it works for you (probably does without saying)

Like any medication, it has side effects. One that never went away for me is dry mouth. It was annoying, but it did not affect my ability to function.

Over time, the therapeutic benefits diminished. Part of that may have been because over time, I developed a serious drinking problem. Alcohol impacts with many medications, including this one.

Part of it might have been that it just stopped working for me. Which can happen with this medication. It can also happen with many medications.

I have changed to a different mood stabilizer, one that works better for me than lithium ever did. Upon reflection, while there is no doubt that lithium did, indeed, help, I wonder if it was as beneficial as it could have been. Maybe I should have supplemented with another mood stabilizer. Maybe I should have taken a different one from the beginning.

That's all water under the bridge, though. With me, it worked, to an extent. However, my levels were always on the low side. Maybe an increased dose would have worked better. I am to blame for that, though. For the longest time, I had my doctor monitor it, not a psychiatrist. He was, as to be expected, more concerned that the levels did not get too high, and the therapeutic benefits were of secondary concern. Also, I was not entirely truthful with him. Maybe that's unfair. I never knew what could have been, so I settled for less improvement than I could have known.

Regardless, I highly recommend that a psychiatrist monitor your levels and your progress, if you choose this medication. I also recommend you do a lot of introspection and be honest with yourself and your psychiatrist. Don't settle for moderate improvement if you do not have to. Ask a psychiatrist if you could be doing better.

Anywho, I say this with some reservation, recognizing that your experience will be different than my own. Just some things to consider, though. Regardless of your decision, make sure you are receiving as much benefit as you can. And the best way to do that is by treating with a psychiatrist. As good as a family doctor can be, the psychiatrist is the expert in this particular area. Take advantage of that. Honestly self-assess, and evaluate your progress (or lack thereof, or decline) with a mental health care provider.

Hope this helps.

i'm with the first poster, you can't know until you try it for yourself because it's different for everyone.

for me, i've been put on 3-5 different mood stabilizers over the years, the newer ones like lamictal and the like first, but they never really seemed to even me out. finally, my doc decided to try me on an older drug - lithium, and wow, it actually works. it keeps me stable, keeps the anxiety low and i haven't gone manic since.

it doesn't come without side effects though. i do have hand tremors, though they aren't really disruptive to life. and sometimes i do space out more than i would normally. also very thirsty. but for me, it's worth it to keep the stress and anxiety low and mood swings in check.

it's still a struggle dealing with my depression, to be honest, but that's not really lithium's job.

When under the guidance of a good pdoc who monitors your dosage properly, Lithium can be a very very good drug. When taken wrong or abused, the drug can cause devastating issues. I was the most stable when I was on it, until I did something stupid. I cannot take it anymore due to kidney problems and it seems to have been the only med that every worked really well for me.

Well I'm on it and I think it's poison. It's messing with my thyroid badly and I'm pissed about that. My TSH is 8.9. I know it helps a lot of people but I want off it and pdoc wont agree.

I was at 900 and wanted to get off it just because of having to drink so much water. I noticed a difference at 600 with a little more anxiety/agitation that got worse and worse until I realized I was only taking 300. I got some pill boxes to keep it straight and once I was at 600, things evened out. I feel okay at 600, which is good enough for now. It showed me that the stuff helps, as much as I didn't want to admit it.

It pulled me out of a year of the insanity of rapid cycling. But after a while i felt wAaay tovflat and too stupid to do my job so i went off it and i didnt return to repeating episodes

I was on it and it worked well. Just annoying side effects of thirst and hand tremors. My husband was on it and went deathly toxic (and he was taking it as prescribed and was being monitored for blood levels). His kidneys started failing, he ended up on dialysis and in the ICU for a week, psychotic because the dialysis pulled all his meds off his system abruptly. Nearly died. After that experience, I absolutely refuse to ever take it again. Just too dangerous. Absolutely traumatic experience.

I took lithium for a short time. It left me feeling out of touch with my feeling and more like a walking zombie. I didn't feel bad, but I didn't feel good either. Almost as if I couldn't feel anything.

I know it's a drug that has helped a lot of people, it just wasn't for me.

I'm on lithium and Iv'e been taking it for almost 2 years now. The dosage had to be adjusted becuase I was at a really theraputic dose, but I started having... GI issues, especially in the morning. When I was at work there was no way for me to get to the restroom in time, so I backed off the dosage to what I'm on now.

I was taking Seroquel but wanted to get off of it and try something else, something that might keep my weight stable. After going over the list of meds I'd tried and either weren't effective or I had side effects my pdoc started me on different meds. Which led to side effects that were intolerable. So he put me on lithium.

I get blood taken regularly -but I had to do that with Seroquel . And he did ask me what I would do if i took the lithium and then started throwing up an hour or so later. I told him I wouldn't take any more Lithium and he asked me why not , "because then I wouldn't have any at the end of the month!" I guess a stomach virus was going around and he had one patient or more than one patient (he was purposefully vague) who became toxic because they were throwing up but taking more Lithium and enough time had passed that it was in their blood stream.

Meds are different for everyone. And some people have really bad experiences, some have medicore experiences and some have good experiences.

Before the Lithium the pdoc tried me on saphris and it was a ****ing nightmare. I lasted less than a week because the side effects were so intolerable.

Thank you all for sharing, I know meds are a different experience for everyone I just wanted to get a general idea about side effects and how it helped or didn't help. I appreciate everyone's input.

Ugh I feel your pain. Saphris was an absolute NIGHTMARE for me. I've never had such a bad reaction to a medication in my entire life.

I've been on (a fairly high dose of) lithium since 1997, and done well with it. Thyroid issues - yes; thirst - yes - but thyroid issues run in my family anyway, and II drinks tons of ice water every day.

Way back then my doctor said "lithium will make you feel better, but you will fight weight all your life."

Fat or crazy - easy choice for me! (And you don't really have to choose between the two.)

I took lithium for 20 years and can offer the following anecdotal information, keeping in mind that, as someone has already mentioned, it's different for everyone. I'm also new to the forum and have no medical or pharmaceutical training whatsoever.

1. I slept for two weeks straight when I started lithium. I've heard that others had the same experience.

2. The involuntary hand tremors became, at times, ridiculously exaggerated. People sometimes thought that I was compulsively gesturing at them. I hated having to make excuses for the tremor and was self-conscious that the tremor made me appear nervous, frightened or guilty when I wasn't. The tremor can be at least somewhat suppressed by the beta blocker propranolol, which some musicians take for stage fright.

3. Prolonged lithium intake will eventually clog your kidneys and you'll have to stop taking it. A responsible prescribing physician will draw blood periodically to monitor your glomerular filtration rate, which measures your kidney function, and once your GFR crosses a certain threshold, you're done with lithium and must resort to an anticonvulsant or some other mood stabilizer. This happened to me a few years ago and I had to switch to Depakote after spectacularly unsuccessful trials of Lamictal, Tegretol, Carbamazepine and Effexor.