{"id":5077,"date":"2012-03-09T14:10:21","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T22:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/?p=5077"},"modified":"2018-05-15T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T16:59:18","slug":"lithium-ups-and-downs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/lithium-ups-and-downs\/","title":{"rendered":"Lithium Ups and Downs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started lithium a few months ago. It has been over fifteen years since
\nI last tried the drug, <\/span><\/strong>so this was a big decision.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My bipolar (the bipolar- what do you call your bipolar?) has steadily gotten worse over the past five years. It’s a downward curve that I constantly try to straighten. Thus the lithium. I started out with a typical dose and waited and waited and when that didn’t work, I went up to a higher dose. Within a week, I felt like I was living life under water. All I wanted to do was eat (a lot), watch European soccer and get into bed.\u00a0 It was truly awful.\u00a0 I stopped working on creative projects and had trouble focusing.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I was still very able to do the coaching I love, meet my work deadlines\u00a0and hang out with friends- but everything else was a fog.<\/p>\n

One day I thought- oh no! It’s the lithium! Pretty dumb that it took me that long. So I went back down to the original dosage and the underwater feeling is gone. I am still on lithium.\u00a0 It helps with the big down swings. I need it, but it’s always a trade off between medications and side effects. How are your meds? Or the meds of the person you care about? IS THE DOSE CORRECT?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Julie<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started lithium a few months ago. It has been over fifteen years since I last tried the drug, so this was a big decision.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My bipolar (the bipolar- what do you call your bipolar?) has steadily gotten worse over the past five years. It’s a downward curve that I constantly try to straighten. Thus the lithium. I started out with a typical dose and waited and waited and when that didn’t work, I went up to a higher dose. Within a week, I felt like I was living life under water. All I wanted to do was eat (a lot), watch European soccer and get into bed. It was truly awful. I stopped working on creative projects and had trouble focusing.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I was still [ Read More ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11594,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions\/11594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}