Posted by man_oh_man1977 on May 3, 2004, at 20:01:15
In reply to Re: lithium toxicity » man_oh_man1977, posted by CareBear04 on May 3, 2004, at 16:42:20
Hi CareBear04,
> man-o-man, can i ask? what was your experience with the lithium toxicity?
-- not very good, but what can 'ya expect w/ any poisoning!
how severe were your symptoms?
-- pretty severe
how did it come on?
-- my pdoc warned me of the following: tremors, frequent thirst and frequent urination. I started at 150 mgs, eventually raising (once a week at 150 mgs/ week) to 900 mgs. After 300 mgs, the shaking was quite noticable, but I lied to myself and family that it was excessive caffeine, which covered the excessive urination as well. As I increased the dosage, my body was shaking really bad... by then I was up to 750 mgs. The peeing got so bad that I felt like I had to go to the bathroom every half hour or so; one night I wet my bed. I was on 900 mgs and started to get sick to my stomach. After 3 days, I started projectile vomiting, to the point where even water would make me vomit. (That being said, I couldn't hold down my other meds, either, so I was having some serious cold turkey w/d effects. ) We dropped down to 750, the symptoms stayed the same, so I went off of it. Still, tho, it took about a week for it to totally clear out of my system; gatorade really helped b/c lithium is a salt and the potassium in the gatorade worked as some sort of salt replacement.
did you have to go to the hospital?
-- no, thanks to the intervention of my dr. and having stopped lying to myself.
sorry for all the questions.
-- no need to apologise.
i'm just trying to get as much info as possible about the drugs i'm taking.
-- Good! I wouldn't worry too much about the toxicity, but how much are you taking? Is it part of a cocktail? Before things went awry, I felt it to be the best mood stabilizer I've ever taken.
> thanks!
-- you bet! hope this helps,
Man-oh-man
poster:man_oh_man1977
thread:342299
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040429/msgs/343010.html