Lithium level and depression

[Stethometer]

my psychiatrist prescribed medicine to lift my lithium levels that should be between 0,6 and 1.2

After one week 0,5
After two weeks 0,6 but still no mood improvement

How long it takes after being tested 0,6 to feel better

Please help

Steve

[Ahimsa]

Hi Steve,

Welcome to RYL!

I think this is more a question for your psychiatrist, everyone is different and an online forum where no one knows your specific situation, medical history, etc isn't going to be the best place to get advice on this I'm afraid.

There's usually someone on here if you want to chat about how you're feeling but we can't really give medical advice.

[not_so_insig]

Giving medical advice is against the rules. If you're wanting advice over the holidays and your psychiatrist isn't around contact your gp or phone 111 if you're in the UK. A pharmacist could also help or if not, they can redirect you to more appropriate people.

[Pi.R^2]

I actually disagree with the above a little bit - we cannot give medical advice but can share our own experiences with a medication though of course with the caveat that everyone responds differently to medication. Personally I haven't been on lithium so cannot offer any experiences but wanted to post to make sure people felt OK to share relevant experiences.

Hope you're feeling better soon!

[Auror.]

most psych meds in general take 4-6 weeks to get up to a therapeutic level/dose. dunno if it's the same with lithium, but it could be worth asking whomever is prescribing it to you. but in general, meds are not going to be instantaneous and do take some time to build up in your system to start to work. hopefully in a few more weeks you'll start to notice some effect? or it may be you need a different dose or other things to help. so yes def worth talking to whomever is prescribing it for you, but it's never unfortunately a set specific thing that works for everyone. that's why there's different meds and a range of safe doses.

also don't have personal experience with lithium but in most cases when we've been on meds it took closer to weeks to a month for us to notice any difference.

[Arienette]

My mate gets really depressed when their lithium levels get out of whack. They get really really unwell quickly.