Comments on: A Patient’s Guide to Lithium

By: Lexin

Lexin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:35:42 +0000

I’m on sodium valproate (Depakote) for my bipolar, but I recognise some of these symptoms in myself. They’re threatening to take away my anti-depressant and I’m mostly depressed, I don’t have very many manic or hypomanic phases I’m rather wary.

Thanks for the post – drug side effects can be appalling on their own.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:53:29 +0000

Oh, lithium-induced flaky head. I have flaky head syndrome to begin with (some apparently undiagnosable eczema/seborrhea/psoriasis amalgam) but lithium honestly made pretty much all my skin fall off my body, along with a good deal of my hair. I second the above vote for shampoos without laurel/laureth sulfate. I would recommend the one that I use (Giovanni Tea Tree Triple Treat) but you have much longer and prettier and blondier hair than I do so it would probably be too drying. I’m sure there are other options available. Also, Elidel (prescription) was helpful for my eyebrow flakiness when I was on lithium.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:57:49 +0000

I also got put on lithium after an anti-depressant made me manic, but in my case I don't understand why they left me on both of them so long. .-= Amanda´s last blog ..Blueberries =-.

By: Jesse the K

Jesse the K — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:27:34 +0000

Indeed, thanks for a guided tour of my current favorite element. Medicine's physical side-effects can be so disabling: the classic case is cancer treatment, yet it's an issue folks with most any chronic illness cope with. .-= Jesse the K´s last blog ..Quantum Entanglement: Fashion Emergency #33 =-.

By: jenjen1352

jenjen1352 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:21:10 +0000

Just to say thank you so much for answering so many of my unasked questions. I can’t say I greatly care for being bloated, sweaty and shaky, but it’s so much better than the alternative…

By: Astrid

Astrid — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:52:39 +0000

I never thought of it this way. Now I am not on any drugs apart from birth control and a PRN benzodiazepine and I don't have side effects, but I have seen other people with very strong physical side effects from their psych drugs, and yet I never fully realized how this could make someone in fact physically disabled. Now that I read this post, I can think of many instances where I've seen physical issues being dismissed or attributed to someone's mental illness even when it looked to me like they were pretty obvious drug side effects (eg. movement issues from antipsychotics). Of course in some of these cases, even with bad side effects, going off the drug is not an option due to the mental illness, but then now I see the physical disability should certainly be acknowledged. .-= Astrid´s last blog ..The Demise of Individualized Care =-.

By: spotted elephant

spotted elephant — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:19:49 +0000

This is a great description of lithium.

I love lithium, well, Lithobid since I can’t take the nausea from straight lithium. I would not be here without Lithobid. We’ve been together for 7 years.

In addition to the other side effects, it also can cause severe acne (cystic/nodular acne) and it can shut down your kidneys in addition to your thyroid. I don’t care. Lithobid plus a low-dose antidepressant keep me sane. They keep me myself.

Thanks for this post.
.-= spotted elephant´s last blog ..Monday Bunny Blogging =-.

By: LeeLee

LeeLee — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:48:49 +0000

This is an interesting post! Even though many/most of us here take a huge variety of meds for a variety of reasons, I’m willing to bet we have the shared experience of compensating for side effects. You and I certainly do, yet my disability is physical.

Flexeril makes me sun and heat sensitive, and combined with the dehydrating effect of Topamax, is probably a bit dangerous. One of the best purchases I have ever made was a Coleman collapsible cup. I keep it in my purse for when I find myself without water. We go the museums in DC often, and water costs a fortune there. I fill my little cup at water fountains. Good for taking pills, too.

A friend of mine is on Lithium, but I never connected his shaking hands to the med. He frequently either forgot to eat, or got stuck without anywhere to go eat between classes – he’s vegan, and there were very few options near our school. I think I just assumed his shakiness was from that, because it wasn’t to an extreme degree.

Ugh. Flaky head. I thought I was going to scratch my scalp off when my eczema migrated there. Oddly, shampoos free of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate helped quite a bit. I thought for sure it was going to be as hard to deal with as the eczema on my legs. I hadn’t figured out yet how to put Elidel on my head without giving myself a buzz-cut.

By: Marge

Marge — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:08:10 +0000

I <3 my lithium…

You missed off a biggie on the bad things it does – can stop your thyroid gland from working. Since hypothyroidism is something that can cause depression in itself, this is of course a bad thing. My thyroid bounces in and out of being properly functional – I get that tested with my lithium levels too.

I'm a terrible person for looking after myself and I've regularly been over-sweaty. In summer it can take me more than 24 hours to recover from strenuous exercise in the heat, because of the lithium.

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:26:57 +0000

Even with all that, I wish lithium had worked for me. Better the long summer I had trying to get the dosages right than the four! medications I have to take now to try to approximate the effect, with all the side effects they entail. I know four isn’t a huge number to a lot of folks, but I’m also on birth control, allergy meds, migraine stuff and GERD drugs, plus whatever OTC stuff I need to make it through the day with other issues, so it’s just a lot of pills to ingest. And of course none of them coincide timing-wise, really, so I’m at the drugstore at least once a week picking up something or other.