When I was on lithium, it wreaked havoc with my electrolytes. One time, I spent the night vomiting and shitting my guts out, in between horrific nightmares.
I know lithium helps lots of people but it makes me crazy how overprescribed it is.
Adderall is so hard to get but antipsychotics and mood stabilizers are doled out like candy. They’re dangerous drugs too and can have serious side effects that don’t necessarily go away immediately when you stop taking them.
I was in my early 20s struggling with normal early 20s drama and the years of stress kinda made my mental health a little spicy, but I wasn’t psychotic or delusional. I was depressed and chronically stressed out with no escape.
My psychiatrist prescribed me an antipsychotic anyway that gave me HORRIBLE side effects. Like one time I was in the middle of driving when suddenly the sun got really bright and blurry like I was looking at it through a camera with Vaseline smeared on the lens. Then my eyes and neck started jerking and twisting involuntarily. Thankfully someone else was with me so they could drive while I just curled into a ball and held myself hoping it would finally end. It went on for HOURS. It was scary af. I took the medication like one more time after that and although I didn’t have such a bad reaction as that one time, I felt… uncomfortable. Like full body discomfort. It felt like my bladder was really full or I had a UTI but all over my entire body.
I immediately stopped taking it. Then I found out through doing my own research (because why would the doctor who is incorrectly prescribing them tell me) these aren’t uncommon side effects and what I was experiencing the first time was called dystonia or an oculogyric crisis. It literally looked like I was possessed. There’s videos of it out there if you want to see. It’s fucked up.
The full body discomfort feeling is called akathisia and was probably just as bad simply for the fact I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Holy Christ, I didn’t know Ziprasidone was Geodon. It was prescribed to me for relatively severe panic attacks that were so bad I couldn’t leave the house. I chose to grit my teeth and raw dog it unmedicated because the thought of Geodon side effects would put me into a state of abject fear. Somehow I came through that nightmare okay but I do not wish to relive the summer of 2005.
I was taking Geodon and it caused me to completely black out. Luckily I was in my apartment, but I was taking my meds by my sink and I fell backwards on my kitchen floor. I woke up to my dog licking my face and it was also my first day of senior year in college (go figure). I didn’t know how long I was out and then I was freaked out because I wanted to make sure my dog didn’t get into the meds (she didn’t). It was crazy scary.
I had that too, it was f’n horrible. I tried to tell my psychiatrist, he thought I was exaggerating so I could get out of taking the medication.
Gotta love doping up teens in the group homes in the 80’s.
Mood stabilizers are sometimes used to modify antidepressants for treatment resistant depression (which is probably trauma in disguise and not “depression” at all but I digress). They’re also prescribed off label to manage mood dysregulation for conditions like PMDD and CPTSD.
It may be different in your country, but ADHD assessments here can be thousands of dollars, require visiting a separate provider than your prescribing psychiatrist, take hours, etc.
I’ve neither seen nor heard of any similar standard of rigor for bipolar or schizophrenia diagnoses. I understand that when someone is in mania or psychosis that’s different- but I used to be in a depresssion therapy group and almost all of us were on mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.
My psychiatrist also happily prescribed a mood stabilizer (lamotrigine- I won’t touch lithium again) for my CPTSD but will not give me the adderall I desperately need to function.
It surprises me lithium is used so frequently still. It really is just a hard drug to take. I can see if someone has a reaction to lamotrigine switching to lithium, but having it as the first med offered for a mood stabilizer is just cruel in my opinion.
Yup, it's used as a "all other med trials failed" medication, never ever the first resort. We still will have patients who do take it, they're usually around 3-4 days until they get transferred to one of the specialized psychiatric facilities or a hospital with a higher level of care (one hospital I worked at had wing of the psych unit that was entirely locked, it mostly held people in transition to our forensic institution)
Whenever I see someone talk about lithium I always think of Britney Spears, whose doctors forced her to take high doses while she was under her conservatorship. - against her will.
Ugh. Lithium SUCKS. It has merit if it makes you feel better, but it’s just really hard on you.
I was on a bunch of meds at the time but I’m pretty sure lithium causes painful cystic acne that took years to improve. It made me feel extremely flat too- the mood stabilizer I’m on now (lamotrigine) is so much easier on my brain and body.
Was taking both at the same time at one point. And adderall. And zofran… oh sweet baby Jesus I was not warned nor heard about serotonin syndrome. Peed grey before stopping everything. Used peanut butter to cut the meds.
I can’t imagine dealing with the physical misery and then having the nightmares on top of it. Some nights really leave a person thinking, “how the hell did I get through that?”
Lithium fucked me up. I had horrible insomnia, nausea and cold sweats and my hands shook so bad I couldn’t write anymore. I was on it for 6 months of hell before they finally swapped me on to Lamotrigine + Apriprazol mix… 0 side effects now/
I was prescribed lithium in the psych ward without me knowing.
I spent about a week tired as a dog but couldn't sleep because as soon as I closed my eyes I had horrible realistic nightmares. The ones you wake up from not knowing if it was a dream or not. I genuinely thought I was losing my mind because I was just thrown around different "realities".
I was also thirsty all. The. Time. I think I drank about 4 litres a day and was still thirsty.
Eventually a fellow patient guessed I might be on lithium. I asked the doc, took another 4 days before they took me off it because obviously I was in the psych ward for a reason and they weren't too keen on me choosing my own medication.
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u/C1K3 11h ago
When I was on lithium, it wreaked havoc with my electrolytes. One time, I spent the night vomiting and shitting my guts out, in between horrific nightmares.