Lithium for bipolar experiences

[Sweetladyjane]

I was diagnosed with bipolar 6 years ago and have been under the mental health team on and off since. I’ve tried various different meds but have never been completely stable and might have a couple of months of stability before I go high / low.

I’m back under them now and have a psychiatrist appointment at the beginning of January and when I had the phone assessment last week they asked if I’d ever tried lithium.

It’s pretty much the only thing I haven’t tried so I was wondering if people would mind sharing their experiences?

I’m scared by the regular blood tests and the possibility of lithium toxicity but wondered how common this really is?

Thank you in advance.

I know this is an older post but wanted to tell you for me Lithium is life changing. I've been on it 5 years and wish I'd had it 20 years ago. It's very safe as bloods checked every 12 weeks and titration very very carefully managed. There are none of the psychological side effects other MH drugs give you. It's the gold standard and is good for your brain. Give it time, the worst part for me was coming off other meds gradually so I could start lithium, felt a bit tired and nauseus but then felt fine. It stabilised me, hope you get the help you need.

DP was on lithium as a last resort but only for about 18 months as he did have problems and had to stop taking it. However it did work and he no longer has manic phases nor does his depression reach the depths it used to. Regular blood tests are a must when taking lithium. Good luck. I hope it works for you.

I have been on lithium since July 22.
The therapeutic range for lithium is 0.4 -1.0 for the pills I'm on. Due to the severity of my depression when I started on lithium my doctor was targeting a blood response of 0.9-1.0. this was in a hospital setting. I did go toxic once whilst they were increasing my dose. There was a heat wave at the same time and the combination led to my levels going from 0.8 to 1.2. I got a tremor but no other symptoms. I had to drink 3L of water a day rather than the 2l I had been and they lowered my dose. I had another ECG too, I had to have one before starting lithium too.
The only other time I have had a tremor was a few days after having norovirus. I arranged to get my bloods done but my the time I had the appointment the shakes had gone. I was in the community by this point and it took a week for the nurses to have an available slot at the right time of day. I take my lithium at 10pm so the blood test has to be done at 10am.

Lithium took me from psychotic depression to back returning to work on a phased return in 3 months having been diagnosed as treatment resistant in hospital prior to starting lithium. It has caused weight gain but I have gone from very underweight to the top half of normal weight. It's heavier than I'm happy with but it's not really a huge gain compared to my normal weight. The weight loss was due to crazy diets in response to pregnancy sickness and breastfeeding an allergy baby.

It is the only treatment which has evidence of being neuroprotective and can treat bipolar and not just bipolar symptoms. I don't know to what degree it does this though. One of the quirks of lithium is that each time you try it, it can work a little bit less so it's a drug to think carefully about when to stop it. I have had one annoying side effects which my psychiatrist sort of disagrees is a side effects. I wake up about an hour after taking it feeling like I'm drowning. The first time I happened I was still in hospital. The thing that helps is to drink a shit tonne of water and it seems to happen most when I hadn't drunk enough during the day. I also get if I have cold and have a similar stuffy feeling. I keep a bottle of water next to my bed and that helps. It is at least partly panic and not the lithium as I have got better at not panicking when I wake up like this but it seems odd that it started at the same time. I am in the process of stopping the lithium in order to explore trying to conceive another child and to reduce my total medication load. I was always fearful of lithium because I used to struggle to bring compliant but I'm glad I made the decision to try it and it has definitely improved my mental health over the last 18 months

I have been on lithium for ten years and I find it good. It totally removed my mixed states but didn't really help with my depressions. I take sertraline and lamotrigine for them.

Only side effect I have is slight tremor on my hands.