Bipolar Disorder Community

Lithium is a naturally occuring metal that everyone always has in their body to some degree. You might want to gradually reduce your dose. It takes 5 days to get out of your system and less time to get below therapuetic levels. You can just stop cold turkey with no withdrawl.

Dear illneverbackdown,

There is no withdrawal from stopping lithium. In people with clear bipolar disorder, abruptly stopping increases the chances for a faster relapse than gradually stopping (tapering over a few weeks) but that's different from the question of immediate "withdrawal" type effects of stopping. It is true that lithium has no known or proven value for panic or anxiety.

- Dr. G.

hey Dr. G,

first of all thank you so much for creating this site, and offering all the knowledge and wisdom you have about this to people that really need it. there are so many sites that say all kinds of BS and the problem with that is..when someone with a serious problem tries some advice thats not true and it doesent work, they suffer from it. but you know what youre talking about, and that putsme at ease. so thank you sir.

I was wondering if you could help me with something..i have been taking lithium for like a yr..i first got put on it because i had just gotten clean from being a heavy heavy marijuana smoker, and pretty heavy drinker..and pretty much as soon as i got clean i went into a deep state of depression and badly wanted to kill myself but was too scared to do it. i couldnt take it anymore so i said either im gona off myself today or get help so i got prescribed lithium and felt instantly better as soon as i took it..it helped me alot but now im at the point where i feel that it dulls me too mch, and makes me dopey, tired, lazy and un motivated. i dont feel depressred anymore cause my life is going real well now and i dont want to die atleast not yet cause im leaving for tour next month. (i play music)..but i moslty really wana get off it now cause its starting to make me feel SICK..like physically sick...i feel like there is some kind of tide or tsunami erputing in my body whenever i takeit.. it scares out of me..i cant tell if im gona be okay or if im gona die..my doc said to ween off of it and decrease by 300 mgs..thengo down 600 mgs.. then take just 600 a day and then done..in 5 day increments..my normal dose is 1500 mgs a day. (im 6'3'' 240)..anyway..i reallydont want to have to keep taking them because of how nauseus i become when i take them..so i was thinking maybe i cud just quit altogether..would i get physically sick if i quit?? would i still be okay emotionally if i feel fine now? i dont take it in the day time now and i feel fine all day..what do you think? cause if there is even a chance il bne okay if i quit xold turkey i wana do it..cause dude..this is scaring me so much...when i take the lithium..it was never like this until now..i think too much of it has built up inmy systemm..

Dear Whayden,

Thank you for the kin words about this website.

I would be curious what blood level 1500 mg/day of lithium produces for you...if the level has been on the high side (say, close to 1.0 or more) then your nausea may be a sign of lithium toxicity. Typically doctors check lithium and kidney tests about every 6 months in people taking lithium.

If you ever had a manic or hypomanic episode, then stopping lithium and taking nothing instead would increase the chances for having another mania or hypomania at some point in the future. If however you never had a distinct mania or hypomania, but instead were prescribed lithium for other reasons, then it would be harder to know what to predict your mood would be like off of it. If I had a patient who was going to stop lithium, I would want to continue to monitor them on a regular basis so that if signs of relapse were occurring, we would be able to catch it and do something before things became worse. When lithium is stopped, the usual recommendation is to taper it off over about 2-4 weeks in order to minimize the change of a relapse in bipolar disorder.

Dr. G.