A.

[Noxx]

.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Noxx

[jt07]

There's no way to tell what happened since supplements aren't regulated like drugs. Your doctor (working in conjunction with you) should decide if you need lithium and then the lithium should be lithium carbonate, not lithium orotate, and should be monitored with blood tests. I strongly suggest that you go to a psychiatrist and get a diagnosis and on the proper meds.

[Noxx]

Thanks for the reply. I have been in contact with a psychiatrist, I do not have bipolar disorder and will not need the high doses that are prescribed by doctors.

Lithium Orotate isn't available in my country so the doctors here don't know anything about it and have never had any patients taking it before. He wasn't willing to give me any advice on this so I'm reaching out to others that might have some experience with it. If anyone has had a bad reaction while taking magnesium or any other vitamin/mineral/etc?

[San]

It's pretty good at frying your kidneys.

Lithium carbonate is another form, works essentially the same way, blood test lithium levels are equal regarding therapeutic dose.

Lithium is not something to fuck around with. Its illegal for a reason. If you needed emergency medical attention- you damn well tell them, because its not monitored andyou're buying it illegaly online.

Lithium carbonate is regulated and probably costs less anyways.

[notloki]

A bad idea all round. Lithium carbonate is easier on your kidneys, far easier than Lithium Orotate. Regardless of the kind of lithum you take you need regular tests, kidney function for one.

[Iceberg]

Lith is pretty cheap why even use the other kind 

[browri]

This article outlines a lot of reasons to not bother with the orotate form:

http://psycheducation.org/treatment/mood-stabilizers/the-big-three-for-bipolar-depression/lithium/lithium-orotate/

However, lithium orotate seems to be pretty misunderstood. There was one study where they gave lithium orotate to mice in the same doses that would be required to attain the elemental lithium amounts of the carbonate form. As you can see from the chart on the link above, it takes A LOT of the orotate form to get to what are considered therapeutic levels of the carbonate form. In the mice study, the kidney damage was worse than that caused by the carbonate form.

BUT, my understanding from reading about the orotate form is that it appears to cross the blood-brain barrier more readily than the carbonate form thus necessitating less elemental lithium. Additionally, this would mean that the typical blood level ranges for lithium get thrown out the window because a super low level could theoretically be just as or almost as therapeutic as the normal level for the carbonate form. And at levels that low, there's a possibility, albeit not proven, that the kidney damage may be just as bad or less so in the orotate form than in the carbonate form.

I'm not a doctor though. And despite this information, if you think you want to try lithium or need to take it to control mood swings, you should be taking the carbonate form that has YEARS of data and experience behind it instead of a form that isn't regulated in any way and doesn't have a whole lot of data to back it up.

Edited November 18, 2017 by browri