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Lithium therapy

I am wondering what peoples experience with lithium has been like. It has just reached therapeutic level (0.6) in my bloods. I have no side effects. None at all. No shakes, no nausea, diarrhoea, increased thirst or tiredness. In fact I feel quite alert and my sleep has greatly improved. However, my bloods have come back with an under active thyroid (since starting). What is peoples experience with lithium long term? I have taken almost every other medication imaginable. #lithium #Bipolar1 #BipolarDisorder #HypothyroidismUnderactiveThyroidDisease

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Lithium, your experience?

My psychiatrist just prescribed lithium without much discussion. After researching, one of the main problems is reacting with Venlafaxine. Hello that’s my main anti depression med. I find my psyc. kind of useless. How did it go for you? #lithium

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Lithium Carbonate, Semisodium Valproate, Quetiapine and Mirtazapine 💊 #BipolarDisorder #Medication

It’s a heavy arsenal of Psych Meds I have accumulated wouldn’t you say? But this is the thing that you have to accept. Bipolar Disorder is an absolute Tyrant that has to be silenced. I’m lucky to have found a balance now it seems. I had to persist with my psychiatrist and justify to him why I wanted to be prescribed Lithium as well as the other meds. I was functioning before the lithium was introduced. I wasn’t showing any cause for concern so to speak so my psychiatrist was happy with my condition. However, I knew something wasn’t quite right with me. So I spoke to the Psychiatric Pharmacist at Mountcroft and explained to her about how things were and my thoughts. I’d done my research and put together my notes to show what the problem was, my hypothesis on the next step and then my justification for it and my conclusion. I wasn’t telling anyone how to do their job, I was just giving them the best explanation of how I felt. The pharmacist concurred with my proposal so it went back to my psychiatrist and he authorised my prescription. I’m also on Ramipril so there’s concerns for that raising lithium levels in the blood and causing toxicity. However, as I was already on the ramipril, the introduction of lithium could be boosted by it meaning that I may only need a lower dose than usual to hit the therapeutic zone.

I makes you wonder though doesn’t it. Before the medication, before the psychiatric appointments, before the self harming, before the psychosis, before the mania, before the depression, when you are yourself and not labelled or diagnosed with this or that, you didn’t feel comfortable and felt that you weren’t like the other people around you. So you don’t know what to do. Social pressures and society can then push you further down the rabbit hole. After you break and go to the doctor, they don’t put you back together as you were. You are remodelled, your brain chemistry altered by drug after drug after drug to become someone that looks like you, but isn’t really you?!? #BipolarDisorder #lithium #Depakote #Quetiapine #Mirtazapine

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Why don't antidepressants and therapy work for me and my depression? Is it something else, C-PTSD or Autism?

I have lived all of my 64 years (that I can remember) being depressed. I didn't know what it was until my 20s, and read a book called REALITY THERAPY which described my symptoms very well, and offered me hope for the first time. I started therapy soon after, but living with depression ever since.

I have been in regular therapy since that time, and have had a wide variety of therapists, and a wide variety of antidepressants in those years. I'm currently on Effexor XR 300mg per day, and have been for over 10 years. It seems to have worked better for me than others I had in the previous years.

Still, the best that I ever feel is what I think 'normal' people feel when they say they're depressed. I call it "neutral", although when I'm questioned by a therapist or doctor, they classify it as 'depressed'. For me, that "neutral" state feels like a huge relief, and a time to freely exhale, and otherwise let my body loose, and to relax. But like I said, the doctors say that I am still depressed then, just not as much as I usually am.

Twenty years ago, a new doctor told me that the reason I wasn't getting better was because I was misdiagnosed, and he diagnosed me with Bipolar type 2. I started on Depakote as a mood stabilizer, and stayed on antidepressants as well. Then came a diagnosis of ADHD, and I have been on Ritalin ever since. I spent decades on the combination and still fought depression every step of the way.

Last year I was switched from Depakote to Lithium, at a high dose, and because doctors didn't check my blood levels each month, I ended up with severe Lithium toxicity, and near death. I was taken to a hospital with a Trauma Center a hundred miles away, and spent the next week there hooked to three IVs, and constant medical attention. I'm still recuperating at home.

My current psychiatrist doesn't agree with the previous Bipolar 2 diagnosis, but thinks it may be something else. C-PTSD seems to fit in a myriad of ways with me. But now I am wondering if even some level of Autism fits with me. It's hard for me to tell what might be actual symptoms that I have, and what might just be coincidences.

If my depression is not coming from 'depression', per sé, but is coming from C-PTSD or Autism, would that explain why the antidepressants and talk therapy over the years have never truly gotten rid of it? Or does it not make any difference, and I'm just whistling in some dark alley somewhere? I don't really have much hope any more that things can ever get any better. ♧


#TreatmentresistantDepression
#Depression #ChronicDepression #Bipolar2Disorder #ADHD #Effexor #lithiumtoxicity #lithium #Misdiagnosed #BipolarDisorder #neurodiverse #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Depression #SocialAnxiety #AdultDiagnosis #AutismDiagnosis #BipolarDisorderDiagnosis #Autism #UndiagnosedAutism #TheNationalAutisticSociety #AutismAcceptance #Anxiety #PTSD #CPTSD #PTSDSupportAndRecovery #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Selfdiagnoses

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My LITHIUM TOXICITY Split My Life Into A Before And After ♧

#lithium #lithiumtoxicity #toxicity #Prescriptions #PrescriptionOverdose #SelfRehabilitation

I was in the hospital for LITHIUM TOXICITY for a week a few months ago. It had been building for many months, and my doctor wasn't checking my blood levels. I had one blood level drawn at the beginning and that was all.
As time went on, I was having all kinds of side effects, especially hand tremors that greatly worsened as time passed, but they did not recognize any of them as being connected to the Lithium. So they assumed that they were simply symptoms of other disorders, and put me on other prescriptions to treat those supposed symptoms. It turned out that I didn't need any of them, and despite costing us a fortune, they did more harm than good.
In the end, by the time I was taken away to a hospital trauma center a hundred miles away, I couldn't play my musical instruments, couldn't write or type, couldn't button my clothes or even dress myself, couldn't walk properly but only shuffled slowly, couldn't eat because all food tasted and smelled horrible, couldn't think or communicate coherently, and I didn't know who or where I was.
On top of that, I had developed pneumonia, and we didn't know it until I was in the hospital.
When they tested my Lithium level, it was over 1.9, and they said I was in severe danger of having a stroke.
I spent the next week in bed hooked to three IVs and oxygen. When I was released, I still had the hand tremors, the mental fogginess, the weakness, the mobility issues, and more, but I was off of the Lithium, and getting a little better each day.
I had been so toxic that they said that since I had been all those months building up the toxicity on a cellular level, that it was going to take months to flush it back out of my system and to hopefully get back to where I was before I started the Lithium.
That has proven to be true, so far. It is now four months later, and I am re-learning how to play my main instrument, one day at a time, and one song at a time. It is hard to keep my spirits up at times, remembering how I played before, and how effortlessly I did so. I am not the same player, nor the same person that I was before.
I am getting better at writing, although slow, and my handwriting and signature are different now, and not as stylish or neat. I am walking better, but I can't go far, and I have severe pain in my thighs.
I lost 103 pounds through all of that, but in the last month I have gained 40 pounds of it back.
I don't have the skills for drawing or painting anymore, or at least not yet. I assume the same will be with my sculpting and carving.
It has been an extremely hard road to travel, and painful, but I am grateful that I am still here, such as I am.
If you are on Lithium, be sure and get your blood levels checked every month. Demand it. Be well. ♧

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Meds are trying to kill me

First tardive dyskinesia, then lithium toxicity - I feel like my meds are trying to kill me after being stable for 2 years. Anyone else ever been in this boat or feel the same way? I take my meds ritualously every day and night, and now even at noon, but I'm on so much it's hard to swallow literally and I want to cry every time I approach my pill case. Someone please make me feel better!
#BipolarDisorder #Medicine #lithium #TardiveDyskinesia #lithiumtoxicity #sad

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#Hallucinations #Bipolar #lithium #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #BPDDiagnosis #Support #help #breakdown

I’m really reaching out for help Iv tried with other people and I can not place what’s happening to me. I was in mental hospital a few months ago and was told to come off of my lithium which I was put on 3 years ago when I had my son and was sectioned. Iv always had a bpd diagnosis. Apparently I don’t have bipolar anymore so I came off lithium from 1000 down by 200 every week side effects was horrible being sick etc..been off lithium for nearly 4 weeks I’m hallucinating the last couple of weeks and it has been getting worse I’m under my crisis team and waiting to see a dr on Tuesday. I’m not convinced I don’t have bipolar as when you can come off lithium it can cause another man I episode. What I’m struggling with are my hallucinations I’m hearing things and looking at objects and they are coming to life especially my kids teddies that are saying evil things to me but in my voice..are these hallucinations or are these me just having a vivid imagination? I’m confused with if they are hallucinations and I wondered if anyone could help please as I’m going out of my mind. I’m having to wait for the crisis team then when they leave take clorazepam to make me sleep as I can’t be in my head at the moment. I tried colouring yesterday which I was able to do for a while but then the objects Jist turned into evil faces. #hallucinate #Hallucinations #Bipolar #BPD

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