Lithium

hey guys, i was just lurking around in this forum cause i dont usually get around to checking it, and alot of the questions here talk about if marijuana will interfere with certain drugs, especially drugs for depression. well, i have a small story to tell you, maybe some people will be scared.. some others not.. personally i am not cause i dont happen to take this drug.. its lithium. my friend takes it for god knows what (i think it has to do with manic depression? ) and a few others, now this reaction might not be the lithium/weed or one of the few other drugs he took (all medical drugs) with weed... but... to start the story on day all my friends were toking up, and everyhting was fine, they were all smoking the same **** so it wasn;t laced, and after the first 2 or 3 bowls everything was fine, we all went inside and chilled and watched some tv.. then they all decided to go out and smoke more (P.S. i wasn't smoking @ the time so this is a story being told by a sober person )... everything was going fine once again untill this guy (mr .x that uses lithium) took a massive bong rip.. after that he was feeling sick, and totally dazed etc etc, but he thought he was fine and just tripping.. then we were inside and he was asking for water, saying **** like he wanted to die and that this trip wasn;t normal and that he was like 500000 miles away from all of us. anyways, it got to the point were he wanted to call the ambulance.. and we couldn;t denie it to him.. the poor guy was scared ****less.. so we called the ambulance and they came and basically did nothing.. just asked him what he wanted them to do.. it was utter bull****.. anyways the finally took him to the hospital.. where they made him site for 3 hours in a corner till his parents arrived.. fortunatly his parents wern;t mad.. but i dont think he will ever smoke weed again..
the moral of the story is... dont mix lithium with weed... like i was saying earlier it coulda been something else, maybe the strain was ****ed up and it didn't agree with one of his meds.. but.. be carefull

-- words of advice
-foild
P.S. if anyone here has experience with lithium, and weed, and had other effects positive or negative please reply, i would be interested to hear.

almost the EXACT same situation happened to one of my friends; he was also on anti-depressants. i guess this could be taken as proof to not mix those two compunds...

i take lithium about 1200mg and yea i cant smoke pot anymore, it fucked up my tollerance,
i cant take my own hoots anymore because its wayyy too much and my brain cant handle it, i get baked just sitting next to someone smoking weed. even then sometimes its too much.
before they put me on meds i used to smoke pot everyday, the doctors said it would be fine, but my doctor's been wrong about alot of things

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO ME
now i cant smoke pot anymore

Maybe its just a reaction to the mix of different
Substances.

-clownz-

Lithium/anti Depressants + Weed

i've been smoking weed between a dub to an 8th a day for the past year now in addition to taking different kinds of anti depressants and the likes.

lithium is not actually an anti depressant, but a mood stabilizer intended for people with bi-polar and similar disorders, however may be used as an alternative to typical anti-d's, as it was in my case.

however i cant say i have had such an experience previously described in several of the posts before this...

having read all of yours, and having experienced friends freaking out though, i would say you don't need to call the ambulance. My friend was really fucked up and got the idea that he was dying, called his mom out of fright, who then asked me to call the police.

I told his mom, and i'll tell you...

although their predicament seems genuine, they are in fact under the influence, likely heavily for that matter, and thus not very fit to assess the situation properly. So, even if it is THEIR body which THEY are familiar with, YOU, if ever the friend in the matter, may very well likely be more capable to assess the seriousness of the situation, and deal with it accordingly. Hopefully that would avoid the repercussions of calling an ambulance just to sit nervously in a hospital waiting to both feel better (as thats usually all they do for you in drug related issues where you dont lose consciousness) and see how your parents react to your drug use. Not to mention the expenses that will have come from that choice.

Having done hard hallucinogenic drugs and experienced hours of a bad, terrifying trip surely measurable to that lithium issue, at least parts, i would say that unless they are convulsing, foaming, lose consciousness, or are TRULY injured, its something you probably should just tough out. It's all a matter of where you wait it out, the hospital waiting room, or your house. One is just gonna have more repercussions. Choose wisely.

Likewise if YOU are having the issue, try and keep yourself calm and remind yourself that you are fucked up and may not be able to judge the seriousness of the situation effectively. ask your friends for advice on how you should react to what's going on. And hey, there's always google...

Although i've seen many different freak outs, they all COULD have avoided authority just by waiting it out.

if problems continue after you've come down from whatever illegal drug you've likely done, then start considering the ambulance.

also, when it comes to e, coke, smack, speed, pcp or other super badass, party drugs, you might wanna respect them a little more with seriousness. Those cause more proven long term damage. Easily solved by avoiding those bullshit party drugs anyway. WEED/SHROOMS/LSD all the way!

also, dont fuck with sleeping pills/tranquilizers. and especially dont mix with alcohol. my friend just woke up after being blacked out for hours, only to find himself sitting alone on a couch with a several inch hole in his thigh, gushing blood. Drug related issues are not well accepted by the medical community and so he was treated with a lack of respect, urgency, and compassion, while also, though rightfully, being denied painkillers for the injury.

so...
DO DRUGS WITH FRIENDS AND TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER.

sorry for the length but i hope it can be useful.

Boy, where do I start? I guess I should say first that I am not a doctor nor a psychiatrist who treats these problems on a daily basis. So the only thing I can offer is my experience and knowledge. Take it as you like.......

You are dealing with a serious illness. Bi-polar disorder is a very neglected sickness. It's hard for some to accept that the brain can be sick, but this is just that, a sickness. It is said that there is a chemical deficiency in the brain that the doctors try to counter with the addition of drugs. Any drugs.

There is a plethora of different drugs that are used to try and level out the mood swings. Sometimes it can take several different drugs and sometimes a combination of several to reach that level spot. It is a process, not an event. Long term treatment is required to reach this level of "normal" and some only recieve temporary respite before the sympyoms manifest themselves again.

The addition of ANY new substance can cause another imbalance and have the opposite effect, causing massive panic attacks and feelings of doom and gloom. These are very real things to the person experiencing them, and without treatment can be very hard to deal with.

Marijuana can cause this chemical imbalance, especially if it is put in the mix with these psychotropics. A drug reaction is possible and like any other allergic reaction it can be very serious. Year's ago when Xanax was being used, the product warning sheet said that using marujuana would cause the effect to intensify. The only bad thing is your body would react to this in a negative way when you weren't high by going into a depression. A dangerous mix for someone who is prone to depression or anxiety.......

In my opinion more research needs to be done, but I have an idea that herb is a good thing for the disease since I use it for mine all the time.......


Some Where In Ded Land............

Okay, I realize this thread is totally old and everything, but I came across it on Google and it's been insightful. I am on Lithium, yay for being bipolar. Uhm, but yeah. I've been on several drugs before that don't really mix well with Lithium and from the stories here it seems like mixing weed with Lithium it just makes you very paranoid.

So my question is, is there anyway of DYING if you smoke weed and are on Lithium? Cause I'm not for dying, but paranoia and all that, I can totally stand.

Anyway, if anyone can answer this question for me, that'd be pretty sweet. <3

I have recently been diagnosed as bipolar. Ive known for quite some time that somethings not right, but im a bull headed fukr and i always con'd myself out of going down that road of figuring it out, and just kept catipulting threw life , eye's closed hoping for the best, with a huge ass black cloud over my head. Now that i actually know , it kinda turns on alota lights about why shits gone the way it has over the years. Which has been both disturbing , enlightening, and sorta shitty yet sweet.

Well to get to the point, doc gave me seroquel for night time dibilatating racing thoughts and to get a nights sleep for once, and epival, for that and the rest, which i found out that 12-35% of the people taking epival( depending which site, survey, research whatever yer getting info from) have the luxury of their hair falling out. Now im the last male in my family with a hair line, and ive grown quite attached to that fact. Debated my sanity or my hair for what seemed forever, and figured there had to be another fork in the road i missed abit back. i mean i never heard before of bipolar meaning " k dude, yer gonna be bald just deal with it". So at my week later appointment with doc to see how shits going, i said nah nah to the epival , and asked what other options i have avail. Then he gets all lithium this , lithium that, and im thinking " aint that what mr cobain was on when he grabbed his trusty 12 gauge and held the reigns for one last time?"

Then i start thinkin, fuk... hows that crap mix with the herbs i been smoking for the better part of 15 years? and start searchin google for some answers, when i tripped over this post.

As i start reading the first posts... i m going " huh? whahhh? fuk! nah... god dammit...really? but that means... Fuk! now i gotta... hmmm... read more see whats up...
So i read on, i get a lil deeper into the thread and mix's post... and by then im all " fuk! now i gotta quit weed, or fuk lithium , but then whacky racin brain to deal with, wtf? dammit! .... /sigh... guess im quittin weed
Dedbr's post reaffirms those last few thoughts for me and starts to cement the reality of weed soon being a thing of the past for me.
Then i read this last guy's post and i did laugh out loud , i will admitt.

Lightened me right the fuk up lol.
Here i am contemplating which holds the key to my sanity, lithium + quitting weed / no lithium + weed / no lithium + no weed. and this dude's all " fuk, as long as it dont kill me its all good."
lol... /sigh

Still mixed thoughts, alot of which contain the letters w, t, and f. but ya...

/sigh

Magotitus

Hey im soo glad to see this isnt just me. Ive been on lithiium for awhile and i smoke dailley. Butt a couple days after i started lithium i decided to smoke a j withh my buddy, things were okay up until i stepped into his garage. Immediatlyy i felt something was very wrong. My heart started beating super fast and it almost felt like i waas having small seizures. I was having a full blown panic attack and i couldnt think my waay. Out of it cause of that damn lithium

"I'm so happy, 'cause today I found my friends - they're in my head..."

Sorry, I felt like I had to... On a related note, the same thing happened to me and I'm on Lamotrigine. Moral of the story: Antidepressants and Marijuana don't mix.

I read this post and was inclined to share my experience.

While I was on Zoloft I ingested quite a bit of hash. (For those of you who don't know Zoloft is an anti depressant/anxiety medication.) This fucked me up. I thought I was going to die. I couldn't see and I kept hallucinating and I was on a bus, so the movement made it like ten times worse. I kept screaming and flipping out and I can't remember anything that happened that day.

However, when I switched to a combo of Celexa and Lithium for Bipolar Disorder, I could smoke as much as I wanted. I've smoked three times this past week and the only thing different that happens is that the high lasts longer than 24 hours. I've also ingested since then, and it's been fine. So I think it just depends on the person. My highs feel better on Lithium

it was most likely the lithium reacting to the thc in the brain. when lithium and thc are both present in the brain, your brain naturally produces hallucinogens. this causes the individual to feel like they're tripping. i personally had this happen years back when i was prescribed it. at the time i didnt take it most days if i thought i would be toking. after high school one day, i figured i wouldn't get a chance to before work. a friend packed one up as i was about to leave to go to work and told me "hit it to ur face".

i did and began my trek back thru the woods to my house (about 15-20 min walk). my route took me over this old bridge made of concrete, steel and railroad ties that quad riders used to get between trails on either side of the river. 1/4 way across this bridge (at least 500ft over a shallow river and river bed), i began to have strange visual effects and was more shaky in my movements. the majority of the remaining trip was spent nervously checkin myself for spiders on my body and wondering wtf was going on. . i was convinced i walked thru spider webs along the trail.

when i realized i had just smoked on a day i decided to take my lithium, it all made sense because i had been warned about this effect with the drug. i remember thinking, "Ohhhhh..... i'm tripping... thats interesting....." i thought it would be much worse of an interaction. the rest of the journey and the first 1/2 hour- hour of work was fun, since i knew what was happening it didn't scare me nearly as much.

The biggest part about a terrible trip like that is knowing 1: you're not going to die, 2: it will go away and 3: its all in your head.