Your experiences with lithium?

Medications
1

List em below folks.

On Lithium Carbonate I get water retention, extreme thirst, weight gain, severe anhedonia.

Can’t enjoy music, food or nicotine on lithium.

Also how long do you have to be on lithium for it to damage the thyroid gland? I think chatgpt said it interferes with iodine reuptake or something the other day.

Pdocs here at hospital saying I need a mood stabilizers when I don’t get mania or depressive majorly, in the community.

In hospital I had a weird mania last month but I think it was stress, ASD, voices and hostility of the ward that made me crazy. Also bad smells and too much human interaction

I don’t like talking to people much.

Hospital docs don’t know me irl. Just from subjective notes made by hospital staff.

It’s not fair.

I feel suicidal from anhedonia from lithium, so I ceased it 6 days ago.

As a result they rescinded my leave for fresh air breaks.

Which in itself is psychological abuse because I need a change of scenery and time away from the chaos of the ward. I can’t just stay in my room all day either..I get restless.

In the community I normally do 10-20k steps a day out in nature and I haven’t had that opportunity here.

I do have ASD but high emotional intelligence and empathy. So I comprehend social cues etc. Only issue is sensory overload in hospital. The shouting is currently giving me insomnia.

And my diagnosis by doctors is SZA

I say stress or insomnia induced temp psychosis.

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Draining being ignored by staff too. Constantly under staffed due to budget cuts at a private hospital which charges extortionate amounts to the NHS/Tax payer.

I’m lost for words. This is abuse.

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Makes my hands shake like nothing else. Want real frustration? Try eating soup while taking it.

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Destroyed my thyroid gland 35 years ago…on Synthroid now forever.

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5

Gah damn. That’s awful. So sorry to the both of you. File a lawsuit. Idk what class actions exist on US/Canadian soil but there was a class action/Glo for risperidone.

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To be honest I don’t understand why they perscribe lithium carbonate.

I have read a lot of posts on the forum here of people who have been damadged by this drug one way or another. At least in the long term.

There must be good alternatives to this drug.

Also there is the possibility to try lithium orotate. It has anti depressive effects, but without serious side effects like lithium carbonate. But it’s not in the pharmacopeia of doctors as it is sold only as a supplement.

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Made me very ill. My throat hurt after 1 dose and I felt really stupid and slow. Threw it in the bin.

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Gah damn. That’s awful. So sorry to the both of you. File a lawsuit.

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My hands shaked with lithium. After i stopped lithium and one more after i had not shaking in the hands and now i take valproate.

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I have no side effects with lithium. Well actually it might contribute to my weight gain

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I was recently put on Lithium carbonate. I really don’t like it. I have a lot of side effects with it. I can’t stay still and need to be doing stuff all the time. I use the bathroom quite a lot. It completely destroyed my libido. My depression has come back since being on this medication. I’m talking to my pdoc next week. I will plea with him to take me off this. Is it a common thing to get such bad side effects from Lithium?

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It didn’t even work for me. Didn’t get side effects. I had to get back on AP.

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I was on lithium for years in the past.
It didn’t work so well for me as I’m a rapid cycler.

It finally gave me diabetes and hypothyroidism.

This drug is toxic

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14

Why are pdocs so adamant on prescribing it? Seems insane.

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@EternalAether

I was on Lithium for nine years and it gave me violently coarse tremors in my hands to where I could barely do my job as an RN. It also affected my thyroid to the point where I now need thyroid hormone supplementation the rest of my life. And get this: It did absolutely no good for my mood all that time.

The reason why myself and so many others have been on it is because years ago, Lithium was one of the few mood stabilizing drugs available for a long time.

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16

When I took lithium I was so overwhelmed by anything I couldn’t even look at things, to comprehend what they said. I took lithium and I could look at things. (I hadn’t been able to look at my new license plate number). It made me more social.

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My gramma told me they tried putting her on it and she wouldnt take it… in one of my favorite shows the sopranos tony was taking it and hallucinated his neighbours house made. Scary stuff id say

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i took lithium as a kid. cant remember having many side effects. ive taken worse