I have not tried lithium orotate, but I can report on the disastrous effects a trial of lithium carbonate had on me, personally. I had received an ECT consult for treatment-resistant unipolar depression, and the doctor noted that even though there wasn't any reason to suspect bipolar, I hadn't ever really been treated as if I had a bipolar-spectrum illness with the exception of lamictal, and thought that a lithium trial might be warranted. Around the same time, I also went on Cytomel, which is a thyroid drug, to try to augment the antidepressant I was taking, even though I have normal thyroid function.
First, I couldn't keep lithium down, especially in the morning (I took it at night). I would wake up every morning and vomit, even when I was within the therapeutic window according to my bloodwork. Second, my TSH value had been around 2.2 MIU/L or so (normal range: 0.40-4.50). After going on Cytomel (T3), you would have expected my TSH value to drop, but it actually did the opposite because of the lithium, and rose to 6.60, necessitating the addition of more thyroid hormone (T4) just to get my thyroid function back down into the normal range. Third, I lost about 35 pounds as the result of being constantly nauseated, and my hair fell out. My creatinine also rose to higher than normal levels. I had to take daily medication for constipation, even though this had never been an issue for me before. My skin looked terrible and it made me really prone to acne, and my skin tone changed to kind of a gray/green pallor. Anybody walking down the street could have told that I was extremely ill. People told me that they could "smell" the lithium on me escaping from my skin pores, like you can smell alcohol on the skin of alcoholics. It changed my sense of smell and taste, there was a constant metallic taste in my mouth, and my favorite foods suddenly were abhorrent to me and I switched to eating and drinking entirely different foods. All of this was happening largely while I was within the "therapeutic window," according to my bloodwork. Luckily, all the above symptoms (including the high TSH and creatinine values) eventually returned to normal after discontinuing the drug.
In my opinion, lithium is a disgusting drug that happens to work amazingly well for some people, most of whom are bipolar. However, I have never met a person who enjoyed taking lithium, and I think that medication adherence is a huge problem because of the side effects, even in those who respond well to it. It is enormously toxic if your blood concentration rises too high, which is easy to do if you're vomiting and dehydrated. I would argue that it's pretty toxic even at therapeutic doses, and seems to eventually damage your kidneys with long-term use at therapeutic levels. If you don't have the means to have regular bloodwork performed (lithium levels, but also kidney/liver/thyroid function), I would stay far away from any lithium salt, even at smaller doses. It has the potential to do a lot of harm if not monitored closely, and the orotate version doesn't seem to have enough research behind it to know for sure what you're dealing with.
If you really want to try lithium, I would recommend sucking it up and paying a doctor to do a 6-week trial on lithium carbonate and pony up the cash for the doctor's visits and bloodwork. The drug itself is cheap, fortunately.
) are 320mg. I am breaking them into fourths and plan on taking one quarter tablet every Sunday night, and shall report if there's any benefit or problems...
