Posted by barbaracat on March 22, 2005, at 8:38:55
In reply to Li levels, polyuria, etc. » barbaracat, posted by cache-monkey on March 21, 2005, at 22:47:08
>
> Found one such site, summarizing a number of studies pointing to 0.4 as being a potentially therapeutic lower bound:
> http://www.vh.org/adult/provider/psychiatry/CPS/22.html I've passed this on to my psychiatrist.
>
**That's a good article. There were a few posts on this board as I recall saying that they were doing well on 600mg and even lower. Might be worth a Babble search.
>
> Well, I called my pdoc and reported my symptoms. He's advising discontinuing completely.**That's unfortunate. I guess he's concerned about your past prostate problems?
>>I'm going to try going to 600 mg for a few days. If the symptoms don't resolve, I guess I'll d/c and rechallenge later. Hopefully they will resolve, in which case I'd like to get back up to 900 mg (with a level of 0.4) and stay there.**That sounds like a wise idea, but a suggestion is to back down slowly to 900mg first. Don't want to exacerbate a switch or anything.
In my experience, doctors get a little trigger happy with lithium and err on the side of too much too quickly and then want to throw the baby out with the bath water when s/x start. It's truly a wonder drug if you can hit the sweet spot. Others have found alot of help with Trileptal (one I haven't tried). But for me, lithium seems to be the only one with true mood stabilizing properties. Whatever is unique about it, it's what this poor fried brain requires and I bless it every day.
It sounds like you're taking things into your own hands and making decisions for your own best interests. I don't mean to badmouth pdocs entirely, but they rarely see us or know us enough to be our experts. Nor have they tried taking most of these meds. We have to be proactive within the bounds of good sense. Good luck, my friend. Please keep me informed. - Barbara
> I'll keep you posted.
>
> All the best,
> cache-monkey
poster:barbaracat
thread:470912
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050322/msgs/473934.html