BPDFamily.com

Has anyone's BPD partners been prescribed Lithium?

I'm still in the house with my uBPDwife at the moment, and she is getting close to a BPD diagnosis. Mood stabilisers have been discussed and she has to have blood tests.

She believes that Lithium will be prescribed.

Just interested to know if anyone else has experience of this, and if so, did it make a difference?

Desperatehubby

I had a cousin (adopted) that was prescribed lithium for BPD... she was pretty low functioning and it certainly slowed down her extreme acting out. Had some side effects over time, she rocked back and forth a lot and had a big loss of affect... . drooled a bit. It was sad seeing her like that. She was in a RTC at the time. I am no doctor, but I know there is no medication "for BPD"... so it would be targeting some symptoms or other... that is a pretty strong medication... the side effects stopped when she was taken off it, so that was good.

When my H was diagnosed bipolar (before they changed it to BPD) he was prescribed lithium... . it had little to no effect on him at all. I think he might be a bit peculiar in this respect though. Certainly the psychiatrist he was under at the time was really surprised that it had such little impact on him (and none of the other drugs he tried did either).

PT x

I am pretty sure my dBPDgf said she was taking lithium for awhile, but I am not sure if that was before or after she was diagnosed with BPD.  From what she has told me, she has had three stints in mental hospitals, the first as a teenager.  I am assuming the lithium was part of the in-patient therapy.  Even though she seems very unstable right now, she says she was very much more unstable in her past, and very much more out of control.

Now I am just concerned she wants to stop taking antidepressants just a week or two after starting them.