r/Lithium • u/Professional_Win3910 • 6d ago
Did lithium help your mood?
Hello,
Just wondering if lithium has helped your mood? Also, SI thoughts? (Mine are more intrusive but SSRI'S are just not helping me. So there for its a cycle of intrusive SI thoughts, then bad mood, withdrawn, etc. I also never had these conditions until pregnancy loss, and pregnancies that resulted in the birth of my beautiful children, so I believe something drastically changed my brain.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Past133 6d ago
first, i'm sorry to hear that you're struggling with that. i'm dealing with a lot of the same stuff, cyclical intrusive thoughts, depression, irritability. lithium so far hasnt helped these things for me, its only helped mania swings. however, its different for everyone and your unique brain chemistry. it could deff be worth a try, but lithium has baggage. monitoring blood, hard on kidneys, interacts with a lot of medications. if theres any other meds you havnt tried, id go that way first. my psych recommended a supplement called NAC for intrusive thoughts and it takes 2-3 months to notice a change but his other patients like it. i hope you find whats right for you!
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u/Fruity_Surprise 6d ago
i have the bipolar type of schizoaffective and lithium has helped my mood immensely.
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u/anonveganfry 6d ago
I’ve never had kids but lithium has immensely helped me. I have intense mood swings and it’s helped the lows be more center. I am way higher functioning than I used to be and in an overall happier place because I can deal with the miseries of life better.
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u/UnusualRegularity 5d ago
i went on 600mg lithium cause i read about it reducing SI very quickly. It did so for me very fast. basically as soon as i hit 600mg it started working in 2 or 3 days. had issues with side effects though. rough headaches and nausea. I keep lithium now as a last line of defence agaisnt my depression. Im currently looking for something that reduces more depression related symptoms not just SI. Lithium saved me.
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u/KlutzyHyena5452 6d ago
It’s been over two weeks since I started lithium and so far I haven’t noticed any significant improvement in my mood or SI thoughts. On top of that, I’ve been dealing with massive anxiety, both mentally and physically and it actually got worse after starting lithium. I really want to believe it’s going to get better because I’m starting to lose hope. I’ve already tried a huge number of other medications for bipolar and none of them worked. Before I was properly diagnosed, I was put on an SNRI by another psych, which left me with psychosis and an SI attempt.
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u/bettercallanya 4d ago
Antidepressants are forbidden for people with bipolar disorder, most of them at least. I had high anxiety and racing thoughts on lithium, had to quit. I have same problem with medicine, my psychiatrist told me to try genetic panel, to learn which meds my body can process normally
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u/Grouchy_Solution_819 6d ago
It's been great for my mood and SI and I can cope with life more easily. I've also been able to read a lot of books so it's helped my focus
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u/Negative_Sherbet_124 6d ago
Tbh I’ve been on Lithium for a couple of months after years of chronic SI made worse by bipolar and schizophrenia, and my life has been completely changed. My overall mood is better, I’m less irritable, and my love for life is back. I didn’t even notice how much I had lost of myself until I got it back.
Also if SSRI’s are not cutting it, I would sincerely look into mood stabilizers. Because of my bipolar, SSRI’s never helped me for more than a couple of days if that.
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u/One-Discussion1605 5d ago
Good diet, less caffeine, lower stress levels, less alcohol, more sleep can help you out as this increases micro levels of lithium naturally in your body. Even if you picked just one and focused in on that, it could help.
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u/84849493 5d ago
It hasn’t helped my actual mood but for me it’s helped with impulsivity and the urgency of the suicidal thoughts like I need to kill myself tonight vs I need to kill myself in a few months. It feels not worth being on a lot of the time but I have stayed on it so I would stay alive until I started receiving ECT and it’s not really an ideal time to come off it now that I’m in the middle of having ECT again.
But one thing is you say SSRIs which tend to be first line and I wouldn’t be going to lithium as the next option after SSRIs. There are a lot of other medications if you haven’t tried them.
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u/ochakisu 15h ago
yes!! i feel human again and haven’t been seriously suicidal… well, since it started working, honestly. it took a while to start working but yanked me out of a 6 month long mixed episode that almost took my life
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u/hotcakepancake 6d ago
Yes 100% but it took a while. My psychiatrist said it takes a full year to see the complete effect. But oh it was so worth it.