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Q: Kidney Stones & Antidepressants
Dear Dr. Phelps,
My husband was diagnosed in December 2001 with BiPolar II Disorder by an
extremely
competent and compassionate therapist who prescribed a combination of Zoloft and
Trileptal. We've been very lucky that this combination works wonderfully
well and
most of his BP II symptoms have been drastically alleviated. However, in
Aril 2003
my husband needed a lithotripsy for kidney stones that he developed. To
our
astonishment, after analysis it was determined that the kidney stones were
approximately one year old. The only lifestyle change during that time
was, of
course the introduction of the medication. Which finally leads me to my
question:
Dr. Phelps, have you seen any statistics/studies (or whatever) that pertain to
antidepressant medications dractically changing bodily pH? (pH imbalance
is one of
the primary causes of kidney stones) Further, how about any studies that
make the
correlation between a lowered veinous blood pH (acidosis) and thyroid
malfunction
that could additionally correlate to Metabolic Disorder and hence BiPolar II?
Dear Ms. E'
With apologies for the shortness of my reply, as I just lost about an hour of
work and got that nice little message from Microsoft: "sorry for any
inconvenience"...
There is a connection between lithium and stones,
and certainly between topiramate, sometimes used in bipolar disorder, and
stones; but not, in any of my quick searches just now, between Zoloft or other
antidepressants, or Trileptal, and stones. Trileptal does lower sodium
levels in most patients, though; so as you're researching this, ask a urologist
if he/she has ever heard of mild "hyponatremia" (low sodium in the
blood) associated with stone formation somehow. I couldn't find a
connection on a brief search there either.
Dr. Phelps
Published July, 2003
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