Bipolar Support Group

Hello;

I am very happy to have discovered this website and I really hope that someone will be able to helpin this problem that has affected my life in so many ways.

In January of this year I started taking Lithium, I started very slowly, with 200mg, by 28 January I was taking 600 mg of Lithium. I was feeling very well,I was sleeping very well, I was not angry or hypomanic, I just loved lithium.

But suddenly, on 28 January I started having tremors, they were not so bad but after 2 days the tremors were worse and I also had fever and a terrible headache for 3 days. During that time I stopped taking Lithium, and when I went to my pdoc, my Lithium blood levels were 0.3.

The surprising thing is that the tremors, the lack of energy, the ability to sleep normally without taking sleeping pills(despite having insomnia for about 5 years), the lack of libido, and the controlled moods continued until March, 5 months after I stopped Lithium. I took another blood test and my Lithium blood level was 0.10, but I did not take Lithium for 5 months.

We are now in August, my docor says that there is nothing that she can do and that my kidneys are perfect because before I started taking lithium I tested my kidneys, liver and thyroid and all were fine. She says it is not possible that I still have lihium in my body and that there is nothing that she can do.

When I first had Lithium toxicity and the doctor said to wait and take clonazepan to hep with the tremors, I researched in the and found the hings that help the body excrete Lithium which were: caffeine, sodium bicarbonate and osmotic diuretics.

I have felft a significant improvement every time I used the above mentioned things but unfortunately, they only laste for weeks, after that, I can take them and they just seem not to work.

When I took caffeine I felt an improvement, but stopped after some weeks because it just did not work as well as before, sodium bicarbonae worked very well. Currently I amd drinking a tea of Couchgrass which contains mannitol, an osmotic diuretic, and it has proved to be very efficient.

I still have the tremors,although not as severe as before. I am now getting more irritated, although I am not as before I took lithium (very angry sometimes, extremely happy other times). My moods are the best indicator that lithium is sitll in my body, the tremors and lak of energy as well. I am extremly unhappy because I am unable to do many things.

Please, I really need someone to help me. Whta can I do to get rid on lithium and go back to normal?

Has anyone had Lithium toxicity and taken something that helped?

Is there something that interacts with lithium and that I can go to the pharmacy and buy it over the counter, so that Lithium can disappear from my body?

I cannot go to any docto and ask them to perform saline diuresis, can I?

If psychiatrist cannot help me, what can I do?

Please help me

Can someone help me?

I have this same problem. Except for me it seems as though the terrible mental symptoms that I got from the lithium (confusion, poor socialization etc.) will not go away. I read about SODIUM POLYSTYRENE SULFONATE. It is used in potassium toxicity, but there is clinical evidence that it is very effective at reducing the levels of lithium in the body. If you Google, "Google Scholar", then once you are at the site Google Scholar, type in sodium polystyrene sulfonate lithium. (You can also type sodium polystyrene sulfonate lithium toxicity or something similar.) You will find tons of scientific articles with evidence that sodium polystyrene sulfonate is effective at reducing lithium. When removing lithium it can be important to supplement with potassium because the sodium polystyrene sulfonate can deplete potassium also.

N- acetylcysteine is an over the counter supplement effective at reducing the kidney symptoms of lithium poisoning, but there is no solid evidence that it reduces lithium levels in the body.

Like you said osmotic diuretics increase the excretion of lithium. Caffeine (and other xanathines) also increase the excretion of lithium.

Thank you for bringing up the mannitol in the couch grass. I know mannitol is effective, is the herb as effective as the diuretic? Is there direct evidence that the herb itself alleviates lithium toxicity? Just wondering for myself.

I hope this helps! I also hope you are able to try the sodium polystyrene sulfonate. In my research it seems to be the most effective thing at alleviating lithium toxicity. Hope you feel better!

Post edited by: want2help13, at: 07/09/2012 05:22 AM

Post edited by: want2help13, at: 07/09/2012 05:22 AM

Acetazolamide is also very helpful at increasing lithium excretion and preventing the body from reabsorbing lithium in the kidneys. Acetazolamide is used for altitude sickness and other purposes. It is a diuretic. The most effective lithium removal is probably with acetazolamide. Good luck once again!

Also, aminophylline (an asthma medication) aids in the excretion of lithium.