I took lithium with no problems. My husband took lithium and had life-threatening problems when he became toxic (while being carefully monitored). He went into kidney failure, was put on dialysis, and was in the ICU for a week, psychotic because the dialysis pulled all meds off his system so abruptly. It was a terrifying experience, and one we both refused to risk ever again. Neither of us are on any psychiatric medications any longer and we're doing well thanks to a great therapist.

I am not anti-med or even anti-lithium by any means. I do say that lithium is a very serious med with some potentially life-threatening side-effects, even when carefully administered and monitored. In my husband's case, he has other medical problems that probably complicated the issue and the pdoc should have never used lithium with him because of the potential for complications due to those other medical issues. I never had any problems with lithium, but the entire situation was pretty traumatic and I could never put another lithium pill in my mouth after that.