Posted by 49er on October 28, 2007, at 14:25:10
In reply to Weaning off Lithium, posted by Jimmyboy on October 20, 2007, at 0:44:29
> I was wondering what the safest course to wean myself off Lithium would be.
>
Hi Jimmy,I am not a doctor so keep this in mind as you read my post.
As a psych med tapering veteran, the most common sense advice I read is to taper 10% of the current dose every 3 to 5 weeks. I admit I went faster than that on my first two meds but on the one I am tapering now, there is no way I will get away with gong faster.
The brain needs time to chemically adapt to haveing less of the med and if you do it too fast, you will send it into a haywire state.
I don't anything about the lithium doses and I do realize with some meds, it can be impossible to stick to th 10% rule. On one of my meds, when it was impossible to do that, I had my psychiatrist write the med at the dose at I wanted and I took it to a compound pharmacist who filled it the way I wanted.
Unfortunately, on the current med I am reducing, he wanted alot more money so I am simply going at it in my own way.
I guess my advice is if you can't reduce by 10%, go as slowly as possible and give youself alot of time between cuts. I got away with going faster on those other meds because of the chemical composition and becasue I am using supplements. But discussing supplements obviously is a whole other ballgame.
49er
poster:49er
thread:790262
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20070929/msgs/791997.html