Lithium and water retention

[Laume]

Okay - you know that feeling when you drink a lot of water in a relatively short time? Like you are sloshing around?

That's what I feel like all the time now.

I drink about 3 litres of water a day, which is not that much more that you are supposed to drink in a day.

I haven't had an appetite, but I can feel the water retention.

Is there anything that will help this awful feeling without messing with my lithium levels?

[SashaSue]

Did you recently start lithium, or have you been on it for a while?

[Laume]

Been on it over 2 1/2 months. I read about water retention, but my ankles/legs/feet aren't swollen - I just feel like there is a beach ball in my stomach.

My pdoc seemed pretty ambivalent about me going up on the lithium, he said I could try it about a month ago when I was getting break through massive depression.

Called pdoc yesterday afternoon told him what I was experiencing - I was having some weird other stuff like a lot of memory loss and feeling like my eyes were not fully open and a bit of blurriness sometimes, along with becoming slightly dyslexic in my typing/writing. He told me to go back to 900 mg of Li from 1200mg and that should help. Also the trazodone I started a month ago should be helping out the breakthrough MDD.

I feel better already - I swear my vision feels better but I know that is just psychosomatic so quickly.

My levels at 900 mg were 0.9, so I should be fine (he said).

We will see. I do not want to have to go on the newer drugs, since having read a lot about them on this site, they seem quite harsh!

[sorrel]

Are you forcing water? Maybe you're just drinking too much of it.

At 75mg trazodone won't help your depression, sorry.