Q:  Tolerating Lithium.

I'm trying to get on lithium, but am having difficulty.  I started with 300 mg  Lithobid at night, but started getting crushing headaches and really bothersome gi upset after three doses.  I kept with it for a week, but eventually had to stop.  Are these likely to decrease at all with time?  I'm willing to give it another go if I thought there was a chance of these side effects dissipating.

Thank you for your book.
 

Dear Bob --

That sounds pretty bad. Usually people who do well on lithium don't have to go through that. If there were reasons to really try to make this work, you could try chopping that pill in half and starting with 150 mg. (The pharmacist might counsel you otherwise because it is a "slow release" pill. It freaks them out when we cut those. But this is a standard procedure, including with the generic version. It loses some of its slow release properties, but only a little, and in this case that is not likely to make too much difference.)

Glad you found the book of value --

Dr. Phelps