DOSE:

repeated

oral

Pharms - Lithium

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

I was put on Lithium for 6 months when I was 15. The first thing it did was mess up my thyroid. I gained 50 pounds (which is devastating to a teenage girl) and was put on Synthroid to correct my hypothyroidism. And then there were the blood tests. Needles in my arm, every month, that's just obnoxious.

The Lithium made me so excessively thirsty, I could chug an entire water bottle in a single sitting. Soon, I had to pee all the time and read somewhere that Lithium could mess up the kidneys. I finally switched doctors and got off the damn stuff. All in all, it didn't help my moods any. It just made me sick and pissed-off.

The saddest case against Lithium I saw was this woman I was in the psych ward with, last summer. She was very intelligent, but had extreme mood swings. And even though she was in her early 50's and had been functioning pretty well on her own in mainstream society, she was being committed to a long-term care facility. The reason? 25 years of Lithium had ruined her kidneys so bad (reduced their function to 10%!) that she needed daily medical care. She wet the bed every night and constantly smelled like pee.

Exp Year: 1999	ExpID: 43831
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 19, 2007	Views: 38,578
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Pharms - Lithium (91) : Not Applicable (38), Medical Use (47), Retrospective / Summary (11)