Stopping Lithium

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Before being diagnosed with AS I was given several wrong diagnoses including bipolar and was placed on lithium. I don't think I have ever had depression or mania, I just have mood swings everyday based on being overwhelmed and I didn't know how to explain that to anyone. I took lithium on and off for the past 10 years and pretty consistently for the past 5. After being diagnosed with AS I stopped taking lithium (previous dose was 1500mg per day). It has been several months now and I still am having difficulties.

It is important to me to learn to cope without this medicine. I have posted previously about how lonely I've been since I stopped taking it. But I feel like taking lithium to cure loneliness is unhealthy, I need to find ways to not be lonely. Lithium seems to make me settle into a routine and keep quiet even when I'm treated badly. I have all the same problems as before but get numb and stop recognizing any feelings.

In addition to loneliness since stopping the meds I am having problems with shorter attention span and some physical symptoms as well. For instance, ever since stopping the medication I have had digestive problems. I have heard this works the opposite for most people (stomach problems occur when they DO take the meds) but I have always taken extended release and had no problems.

Has anyone else been through anything similar?

If I were you I would be looking at WHY I wanted to stop a medication that was working.

If you want to learn to do without it you will probably need to be on it while you learn your skills and get really good at them before gradually tapering off. I doubt that will work though.

Going on and off lithium all the time makes it less effective, I've been told.

Best of luck

Did you get off of it slowly? I took it for years, and have been off of it during times of forgetfulness/ feeling better (?) or insurance lapses (currently). While I have never had the symptoms you express, it was always harder to get back on it then to stop it--symptom-wise. If mood swings are still an issue, is lithium a bad thing, or is it the idea of having to take it? Personally, I always felt there was a "learning curve" with any new medicine when it came to recognizing feelings. It was an issue with feeling numb, but later it seemed it to just be a different way of processing them. I was only taking 900mg of it, with Lamictal, seemed a good combo.

Feeling lonely is not fun, yet better than being totally numb to being treated bad. I haven't read your previous posts yet, but hope you start feeling better. I will venture to say, if it did help slightly, even with the AS diagnosis, sometimes such medicines in smaller doses may help. I think it is what you are comfortable with though.

1) Just because you are not Bipolar, doesn't mean that lithium didn't help you in one way or the other.

2) Just because you are AS, doesn't mean you can't have bipolar.

Other than that I guess you have to go through the side effects you experience at the moment.
But the best is, you talk with a shrink about it, who has knowledge in lithium.

I don't have any experience tapering off lithium as I got lithium toxicity while taking it wound out in the hospital where they flushed it from my system, which left me with withdrawal symptoms for awhile..


Are you sure you do not in fact have bipolar? co-morbid conditions are quite common with mood disorders, if you do not like lithium there are plenty of other meds to take, but I'd think about reevaluating your decision or talk to your doc about what is happening.

I ask myself the same thing.
I have a very high chance of having bipolar and when I'm under stress or something. I get moodfluctuations and those are not really manic or something. It's just like "Bipolar-overload". Hard to explain. Bipolar has in my opinion so much more to it than just mania and depression. Bipolar ppl tend to rages and so on. So processing mood is different in general. I have to get enough sleep every night and have a rhythm. No illegal drugs, not too much alcohol and so on. Also not too much stress. Then I function, but I still have moodswings.

But in times were everything is normal my moodswings get "typical" bipolar. Last year I had 3 different big moodepisodes. First depression for months, then a hypermanic episode in the summer and then between christmas and new year I got depressed again and I still am.

So, now I can identify the typical structure in bipolar, but at other times everything was just a "mess" I would say. Propably some mixed episodes. Also bipolar needs time to "develop" and when I look back it wasn't always that clear. Bipolar is also hard to diagnose.

So, if lithium helps you and now have those proplems, you have high chances to have at least some aspects of bipolar, doesn't have to be the "fullblown bipolar". Also, especially women and especially those with Bipolar II tend to be rapid cycling.

I completely agree
I have bipolar II with rapid cycling, I was diagnosed young (lithium overdose was at 13-14yrs old, not my fault btw lol) and def have rages, not as bad as when I was little but they still happen occasionally, I'm doing much better though winter in general is awful for me so it's been kinda bad recently. Though I'm soon to be officially taking some tests to find out if I do infact have an aspie diagnoses, I understand the "bipolar overload" as well, though now we are wondering if sometimes it's due to sensory/processing overload is responsible for some of my outbursts

My doc says it can be hard to diagnoses bipolar and aspergers as they can mimic each other as well as be co-morbid.