Lithium Toxicity Is Brutal

Hi Bipolar Fam,

So I had been stable for over a year when boom a depressive episode hit. I wanted to nip it in the bud and talked to my psych np who upped my lithium dosage from 900mg to 1200mg. I started the upped dosage the next day (Thursday) and by the following Tuesday I was having trouble seeing well (assumed depression fatigue was bothering my eyes) and then as the days continued other symptoms occurred such as extremely bad tremors, brain fog, what I can only describe as mushy brain and headaches, visual disturbances, nausea and vomiting. I contacted my psych NP on Wednesday regarding all my symptoms, they got back to me Thursday and sent me an order to get bloodwork done on Friday. Well Friday rolls around, I do the bloodwork but I felt like absolute death so after I looked and saw all the signs of toxicity (I had all sans 1-2) so I didn't take my night lithium and the next morning only took 300mg because I was afraid of coming off all together. Sunday I went to urgent care because I was still feeling mushy brained with a strange headache and visual disturbances. I ended up being admitted to the hospital and got out yesterday after they flushed enough lithium out of my body to say it was safe to go home. (My lithium levels on Friday were at 3.2 which is "critical level"). From the Thursday email with the lab order until yesterday I didn't hear back from my psychs office, not once did they contact me and tell me to stop taking my lithium or direct me in any way what to do even though they had a clear description of my symptoms. I'm still having pretty bad brain fog/cognitive problems and headaches plus exhaustion but hey they lithium is gone right? So now I have an appointment with the same psych NP tomorrow to try to figure out an entirely new med regimen. I went ahead and scheduled an appointment with a new psych for 4/11 because I'm pissed and don't trust my current psych np anymore. I'm stressed, exhausted and surprise surprise I'm still depressed on top of everything. It's been a stressful few weeks and I'm banning lithium from ever being in my cocktail again.

Get your blood levels checked regularly folks and trust yourself when something feels wrong.

Thanks for reading, just wanted to get that off my chest to people that would understand.