lithium and alcohol: What Are the Risks of Combining Lithium and Alcohol?

If you take lithium regularly and you’re struggling with your alcohol use, you may want help for alcohol addiction. Unfortunately, mental health problems like bipolar disorder are alsoclosely eco sober house price linkedto drinking and alcohol abuse. If you have been prescribed lithium and are interested in drinking, there are several factors to take into account before you have alcohol.

Drinking alcohol while on lithium can be dangerous to both your health and mental state because it can increase symptoms and lead to lithium toxicity. Some medications can increase the levels and effects of lithium, while others can decrease them. For these reasons, most doctors advise not taking these medications together. Another limitation is that our sample size of patients using lithium was smaller than other studies conducted in Denmark and Taiwan . This limitation was specifically reflected by the wide CIs for results relating to some durations of lithium exposure, although, again, sensitivity analyses remained consistent with our primary findings. We repeated the Cox regression to analyse associations by duration of lithium exposure.

However, lithium treatment does not seem to reduce alcohol intake in individuals who suffer from bipolar disorder (Dorus et al., 1989). Lithium is no longer used to treat alcoholics, as safer pharmaceuticals have been developed, such as naltrexone. Regarding drugs that are used to treat bipolar disorder, some have also been shown to be efficacious in treating alcohol dependence, while others have not. Valproate can reduce the frequency of heavy drinking days and can prolong time to relapse in alcohol-dependent bipolar patients (Brady, Sonne, Anton, & Ballenger, 1995). Carbamazepine, an anticonvulsant that potentiates GABA-A receptors, is effective in reducing relapse drinking and treating withdrawal in alcoholics with comorbid bipolar disorder (Malcolm et al., 2002). On the other hand, findings from several studies have shown that quetiapine does not reduce alcohol consumption in patients with bipolar disorder and alcohol dependence (Guardia et al., 2011, Litten et al., 2012, Stedman et al., 2010).

Can You Mix Lithium and Alcohol?

Few mental health disorders are as closely related to alcohol use disorder as bipolar disorder. Several medications may be used for people recovering from alcohol addiction. A study was conducted with 18 men with alcohol use disorder who were in withdrawal. Make sure your doctor knows of any additional medications you use, including stimulant https://rehabliving.net/ and opioid medicines for anxiety, mental illness, migraines, and severe infections. Lithium is short for lithium carbonate, which treats manic episodes in bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Before taking medication, there are some precautionary measures that you should take, like avoiding alcohol use since it can impact your overall health.

The loss of too much water and salt from your body could lead to serious side effects from this medicine. Check with your doctor right away if you have anxiety, restlessness, a fast heartbeat, fever, sweating, muscle spasms, twitching, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or see or hear things that are not there. These may be symptoms of a serious condition called serotonin syndrome. Your risk may be higher if you also take certain other medicines that affect serotonin levels in your body. The effects may be increased because of slower removal of the medicine from the body.

What Happens When You Mix Lithium & Alcohol

The dose for each is different and they are used at different times of the day. Do not change the type of medicine you take without talking to your doctor first. Tell your doctor if you have ever had any unusual or allergic reaction to this medicine or any other medicines.

• Manifestation of BD in children and adolescents is not as infrequent as previously assumed, with rates of bipolar spectrum disorder reaching an estimated 4%, especially in US samples .
• Adding valproate to lithium may reduce alcohol consumption whereas studies with antipsychotics or naltrexone and acamprosate did not affect mood fluctuations or drinking patterns.
• Drinking alcohol while taking lithium usually isn’t advised because it can make the side effects of the medicine and the symptoms of bipolar disorder more pronounced.

She enjoys writing about health & wellness, science, and medical topics. She graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in English literature. Patients diagnosed with this disorder feel overwhelmed or disconnected from their lives. When their episodes begin, they are often confused and do not know how to act in that condition. To suppress that feeling, they consume alcohol that makes them numb and calm. If you are battling alcoholism and want to recover, get in touch with The Recovery Team.

ADDICTION PROGRAMS

According to some researchers, lithium has a narrow range of safety, making a lithium overdose or lithium toxicity all too easy. But others claim that any such toxicity can easily be fixed by lowering the dose. According to most, side effects from normal amounts of lithium are rare, especially severe ones. According to the US Food and Drugs Administration , signs of lithium toxicity includes vomiting, diarrhea, tremors, ataxia , drowsiness, and muscular weakness. Other common side effects, include weight gain, cognitive impairment, impaired kidney function, hyperthyroidism, and hypothyroidism.

These numbers are in a similar range as in other European countries; while prevalence rates from the US are much higher, both for BD and substance abuse/dependence . Whereas numbers for legal substances, e.g., alcohol, are considered as relatively robust and reproducible, many cases of illicit drug use remain undetected in patients with BD. Cannabis is likely to be second after alcohol as substance of abuse in BD patients, affecting approximately one quarter of bipolar patients .

Treating Mental Health Disorders & Addiction

People who suffer from bipolar disorder frequently feel out of control or out of touch with their life. Being unsure of what to do or how to feel when a bipolar episode occurs makes using alcohol an appealing solution in relieving the symptoms. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, lithium salts were the first drugs the Food and Drug Administration approved to treat mania and depression and that happened in 1970. Patients being treated with lithium who also abuse alcohol will likely be prescribed another mood stabilizer that does not interact with alcohol. They will also be referred to alcohol treatment, either inpatient, outpatient, or partial hospitalization, depending on their abuse severity.

Too much lithium and alcohol in your body can affect thyroid levels leading to hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland is unable to produce thyroid hormone in your blood. Alcohol and lithium cause dehydration, and mixing them can amplify each other’s effect. When alcohol causes a lack of fluid in your body, it causes a rise in the amount of lithium in your blood, leading to lithium toxicity. Patients with bipolar disorder who drink excessively have a higher risk of suicide than those who do not. Long-term substance abuse can cause liver problems because alcohol destroys liver cells and affects enzymes.

MeSH terms

Due to hypothyroidism, you may feel more tired than usual and experience numbness in your hands. If you do not seek professional medical advice and treatment, you may gain weight, experience depression, and have high cholesterol levels. If you are taking this prescription medication and have consumed alcohol, it is vital to know the signs and symptoms of lithium toxicity. Alcohol withdrawal can begin within hours of ending a drinking session. In general, combining lithium and alcohol may not be advised, and you should always speak to your doctor about potential risks and side effects.

However, as shown in adolescents, achieving more mood stability with lithium can result in lower levels of alcohol or drug consumption . Positive effects of lithium on SUD apart from indirect effects via mood stabilization could not be substantiated so far . Other guidelines, e.g., the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments do not recommend CBT but rather the integrated group therapy developed by Weiss and colleagues which includes CBT and psychoeducation components. IGT has been studied in a pilot study and 2 separate RCTs comparing it with either group drug counseling or no treatment.

If you are taking lithium to calm your nerves after an episode and drinking alcohol to increase its soothing effects, that might not happen. Alcohol is known to reduce other drugs’ effectiveness and intensify its side effects. Mixing lithium and alcohol is dangerous for your physical and mental health. If you use lithium, it is best to know how it works and interacts with alcohol. When you suffer from bipolar depression, alcoholcan make your symptoms worse, regardless of whether or not you’re on lithium. Alcohol is a depressant, so it may not be advisable for someone with bipolar disorder to drink, particularly not excessively.

On the home-screening level we recommend a basic home-screening test and then a check of the level of lithium in your hair. A high concentration of mash certified sober homes lithium in drinking water was first discovered in the Andes Mountains. The primary health effect is that lithium can interfere with the thyroid.

In the CANMAT guidelines they are only recommended as second-choice in situations where first choice treatments are not indicated or cannot be used, or when first-choice treatments have not worked . Symptoms of AUD and SUD may often obscure an underlying diagnosis of BD, and frequently result in a long delay before a BD diagnosis has been established by careful clinical observation. Brown et al. reported rates of SUDs in patients with BD ranging from 14 to 65% in treatment settings but only a minority has received a correct diagnosis so far. Given the high incidence of psychiatric comorbidities in AUD, the German S3 Guideline recommend in every patient with AUD to carefully screen for psychiatric comorbidities after completing treatment of acute intoxication or withdrawal .

This information is being provided as a community outreach effort of the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists. This information is for educational and informational purposes only and is not medical advice. This information contains a summary of important points and is not an exhaustive review of information about the medication. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified medical professional with any questions you may have regarding medications or medical conditions. Never delay seeking professional medical advice or disregard medical professional advice as a result of any information provided herein.

Using this medicine with any of the following medicines may cause an increased risk of certain side effects, but using both drugs may be the best treatment for you. If both medicines are prescribed together, your doctor may change the dose or how often you use one or both of the medicines. When it comes to alcoholics dealing with bipolar disorder as well, there have been some positive improvements when using lithium. Lithium can be a solid addition to cases where a person is also dealing with bipolar disorder or depression (co-occurring disorders). While lithium for alcohol withdrawal may not be as effective alone, those struggling with bipolar disorder may benefit. Avoid drinking alcohol or using illegal drugs while you are taking lithium.

Severe and dangerous side effects can occur when medications are mixed in the system, and sleep disorders are a common side effect of taking alcohol and lithium together. Distrust toward the measure to be implemented and collateral consequences are some of the practical challenges that must be considered. On one hand, mistrust can alter the implementation of population-based health measures, especially where there is a lack of credibility in the authority , and the substance to be added is a psychotropic such as lithium.