Does lithium help psychosis?

LovelyCreature · October 29, 2019, 10:09pm

I know its for bipolar but curious if anyone got help with it in psychosis

Anna1 · October 29, 2019, 10:16pm

Nope, i don’t find it’s the case… It lifted even my fears personnaly… I take depakote instead in order to not be so angry or sad…

LovelyCreature · October 29, 2019, 10:27pm

It lifted your fears?

Anna1 · October 29, 2019, 10:32pm

Oh, sorry… I mean, that lithium increased them…

FatMama · October 29, 2019, 10:36pm

Lithium was horrible for me. Shaky, off balance, fell quite a few times, made me sick to my stomach, couldn’t think clearly etc etc.
Different meds work differently for each person.

TheNicestFreak · October 30, 2019, 12:25am

Lithium to me is Vitamin C that if you have skin problems makes them worse.

firemonkey · October 30, 2019, 2:19am

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Lithium augmentation fails to reduce symptoms in poorly responsive schizophrenic outpatients.

SC Schulz, PA Thompson, M Jacobs, PT Ninan, D Robinson, PJ Weiden, K Yadalam, ID Glick and CL Odbert, The Journal of clinical psychiatry, Jun 1999

Nearly one third of patients suffering from schizophrenia do not fully respond to antipsychotic medication. Safe, effective, and cost-efficient methods to reduce symptoms are clearly needed; therefore, lithium as an adjunct to fluphenazine decanoate was tested in a placebo-controlled trial in outpatients who were part of the Treatment Strategies of Schizophrenia (TSS) study.Forty-one patients with DSM-III schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were assigned to either adjunctive lithium or placebo after at least 6 months of fluphenazine decanoate treatment to stabilize symptoms had failed. The trial was designed for 8 weeks of treatment, and patients assigned to placebo could afterward be administered lithium in an 8-week, open-label study.Assessment of the intent-to-treat analysis revealed no significant differences in demographic variables between the lithium and placebo groups. Although both groups showed significant (p = .00135) improvement as measured by total scores on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), there were no significant differences in response between the lithium and placebo groups. Patients originally treated with placebo added to neuroleptic did not have significantly greater improvement when receiving open-label adjunctive lithium.Although success with lithium augmentation therapy for persistent psychosis has been reported in the past, this study of well-characterized patients showed no benefit for this common strategy, thus indicating that care be used in utilizing lithium augmentation.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Lithium and psychosis revisited.

SJ Kingsbury and DL Garver, Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry, Feb 1998

1. Using differential response to medications may help in resolving the central problem of heterogeneity of the psychoses, 2. A distinct subgroup of patients with a lithium responsive, nonaffective psychosis has been shown to have their core psychotic (nonaffective) symptoms respond to lithium alone. 3. The family histories of patients with lithium responsive, nonaffective psychoses suggests that there is less genetic loading for this subgroup of patients. 4. Research on the prodromal adjustment of lithium responsive, nonaffective psychosis patients has not been reported. 5. Lithium responsive patients showed significantly fewer negative symptoms than did those patients with a nonaffective psychosis who did not respond to lithium. 6. Patients with lithium responsive, nonaffective psychoses showed more extreme in vitro lithium ratios in the red blood cells and significantly less of all types of phospholipid methylation. 7. Patients with lithium responsive, nonaffective psychoses showed significantly greater reduction in symptoms during a physostigmine challenge test, but results from apomorphine challenge tests could not be replicated. 8. Aside from differential response to lithium, research on difference in treatment response and outcome for this group has not been reported. 9. Preliminary evidence may suggest that lithium responsive, nonaffective psychosis is a phenocopy of other psychotic disorders that is not associated with ventriculomegaly but is associated with stimulant abuse. 10. Lithium's effects on acetylcholine as well as effects on dopamine and serotonin may explain its efficacy with this subgroup of patients. 11. This review supports the existence of a distinct subgroup of patients with nonaffective psychoses who may have a separate disorder, but further research is necessary. 12. Lithium responsive nonaffective psychosis appears to be a separate, distinct psychotic phenocopy.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The etiologic heterogeneity of schizophrenia.

DL Garver, Harvard review of psychiatry, Mar-Apr 1997

Evidence is increasing in support of the etiologic heterogeneity of schizophrenia. Five distinct diseases/disorders are suggested in this paper, and the relevant studies are reviewed. Familial forms of the disorder include a dopamine psychosis (supported by research documenting both altered dopamine activity and early neuroleptic response among some schizophrenic patients), a neurodegenerative psychosis (supported by investigations that document ongoing change in ventricular brain ratio, elevation of products of cell membrane catabolism within the central nervous system, and age-progressive third ventricle enlargement accompanied by delayed response to neuroleptics), and a neurodevelopmental psychosis (supported by evidence of static enlarged ventricles in some schizophrenic patients and neurological soft signs in high-risk offspring of schizophrenic individuals). Nonfamilial forms include a neurodevelopmental psychosis (supported by evidence of neurodevelopmental abnormalities triggered by neurotropic viruses, radiation, or anoxia) and a lithium-responsive psychosis (supported by evidence of a subgroup of psychotic patients who have low risk of either psychosis or mania in their pedigrees and respond to lithium).

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

A family study of lithium-responsive psychosis.

FJ Sautter, BE McDermott and DL Garver, Journal of affective disorders, Sep 1990

Psychiatric life histories of 487 first-degree family members of 24 lithium-responsive (mood-incongruent) psychotics, 54 lithium-nonresponsive (mood-incongruent) psychotics, and 18 lithium-responsive patients with bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder were contrasted. While the morbid risk of schizophrenic-spectrum was 11.1% in relatives of lithium-nonresponsive probands, the morbid risk for such disorders was only 2.4% in relatives of lithium-responsive (mood-incongruent) psychotics (P less than 0.05). This lithium-responsive illness appears to be familially, and perhaps genetically, distinct from the bulk of the schizophrenias.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Psychosis, lithium-induced antipsychotic response, and seasonality.

DL Garver and LJ Hutchinson, Psychiatry research, Dec 1988

Lithium alone has previously been shown to effect antipsychotic response in approximately one-quarter of mood incongruent psychoses. Such lithium-responsive psychoses and/or the antipsychotic effects of lithium appear to be seasonal, with maximal response rates occurring in the 3-month periods surrounding January and July peaks. Within patients, retrials of lithium in formerly lithium-responsive psychotic patients demonstrate a trend toward greater continued antipsychotic effects of lithium during the periods surrounding January and July (80% response rates) vs. the remaining 6 months of the year (33% response rates).

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Lithium response and psychoses: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

DL Garver, J Hirschowitz, R Fleishmann and PE Djuric, Psychiatry research, May 1984

Lithium-associated remission of psychosis has been described in schizophreniform disorders and in psychotic patients with variants of the red blood cell (RBC)/lithium ratio. To determine whether such remissions are the consequence of lithium treatment rather than spontaneous in nature, a double-blind, placebo-controlled study was undertaken in 16 psychotic patients preselected for the variant of RBC/lithium ration and/or DSM-III schizophreniform diagnosis. Essentially full and sustained remission of psychosis began during periods of lithium treatment in 4 of 15 of the study patients. Improvement was significantly greater during lithium treatment periods than in counterbalanced placebo treatment conditions in these four subjects (p less than 0.02). Fifteen of the same 16 study patients failed to initiate sustained improvement either spontaneously or while on placebo during the initial 14-day treatment period. In this preselected psychotic population, sustained response to lithium occurred at a rate at least four times greater than that which could be attributed to spontaneous remission.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Impact of lithium therapy on core psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia.

FP Zemlan, J Hirschowitz, FJ Sautter and DL Garver, The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, Jan 1984

The authors have previously reported that a sub-group of schizophrenic-like patients respond favorably to lithium therapy: furthermore, psychotic patients who respond to lithium demonstrate appreciable improvement during the first seven days of treatment. The present study investigated which symptoms of schizophrenia improved quickly during lithium treatment. We found that patients who do respond to lithium show significant improvement in the core symptoms of psychosis--hallucinations, delusions and formal thought disorder--during the first seven days of treatment, thus allowing early identification of 88 per cent of schizophrenic patients who ultimately respond to lithium and 91 per cent of those who do not.

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