Discuss all medications you’re taking, including over-the-counter drugs and supplements, with your doctor.Dosing for lithium varies according to your age, weight, and medical history. If you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar depression, don’t stop taking lithium or any prescription antidepressant cold turkey.

Unable to load your delegates due to an error Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable.

It’s important to use birth control to prevent pregnancy while you take this drug.

A prospective cohort study.Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with major depressive disorder (revision). This site uses cookies. Lithium is only approved for depression associated with bipolar disorder. It is particularly important to highlight that lithium has a narrow therapeutic window and the safety profile of this drug is not negligible. © 2005-2020 Healthline Media a Red Ventures Company. If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice.

Healthline Media does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Prediction by unipolar/bipolar illness, average-evoked response, catechol-O-methyl transferase, and family historyLithium’s emerging role in the treatment of refractory major depressive episodes: Augmentation of antidepressantsRole of lithium augmentation in the management of major depressive disorderDouble-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the use of lithium to augment antidepressant medication in continuation treatment of unipolar major depressionDouble-blind, placebo-controlled study of citalopram with and without lithium in the treatment of therapy-resistant depressive patients: A clinical, pharmacokinetic, and pharmacogenetic investigationConcurrent treatment of nonresistant major depression with desipramine and lithium: A double-blind, placebo-controlled studyLithium as an adjunct in the treatment of major depressionAcute antidepressive efficacy of lithium monotherapy, not citalopram, depends on recurrent course of depressionMethods for Reliable Longitudinal Observation of Behavior: Development of a Method for Systematic Observation of Emotional Behavior on Psychiatric WardsLithium and desipramine vs. desipramine alone in the treatment of severe major depression: preliminary studyLithium in the prevention of suicide in mood disorders: Updated systematic review and meta-analysisLithium in the prevention of suicidal behavior and all-cause mortality in patients with mood disorders: Systematic review of randomized trialsLithium versus antidepressants in the long-term treatment of unipolar affective disorderMianserin and lithium in the prophylaxis of depressionDouble-blind comparison of lithium carbonate and maprotiline in the prophylaxis of the affective disordersProphylactic lithium in affective disorders: controlled trialAcceleration and augmentation of antidepressants with lithium for depressive disorders: Two meta-analyses of randomized, placebo-controlled trialsControlled evaluation of lithium prophylaxis in affective disordersEvidence-based pharmacotherapy of treatment-resistant unipolar depressionPrincipal components of the Beck Depression Inventory and regional cerebral metabolism in unipolar and bipolar depressionLithium or an atypical antipsychotic drug in the management of treatment-resistant depression: Systematic review and economic evaluationOutcome after rapid vs. gradual discontinuation of lithium treatment in bipolar mood disordersLithium prophylaxis of depression in bipolar I, bipolar II, and unipolar patientsA 24-month follow-up study of unipolar subjects: Comparison between lithium and fluvoxamineLong-term lithium therapy for bipolar disorder: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trialsLithium treatment and risk for dementia in adults with bipolar disorder: Population-based cohort studyWhy antidepressants are not antidepressants: STEP-BD, STAR*D, and the return of neurotic depressionContinuation therapy with lithium and amitriptyline in unipolar depressive illness: A randomized, double-blind, controlled trialEvidence-based guidelines for treating bipolar disorder: Revised third edition recommendations from the British Association for PsychopharmacologyComparative efficacy of lithium and amitriptyline in the maintenance treatment of recurrent unipolar depression: Randomized studyLithium treatment reduces suicide risk in recurrent major depressive disorderGradual discontinuation of lithium augmentation in elderly patients with unipolar depressionLithium carbonate augmentation of antidepressant treatment.

2017 Nov 13;18(11):2406. doi: 10.3390/ijms18112406.Bipolar Disord. Sign in here to access free tools such as favourites and alerts, or to access personal subscriptionsIf you have access to journal content via a university, library or employer, sign in hereResearch off-campus without worrying about access issues. Epub 2018 Mar 14.Int J Mol Sci. Call 911 or have someone take you to the emergency room. 2015 Oct 1;185:31-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2015.05.070. By continuing you agree to the 1. This site needs JavaScript to work properly. As an adjunct to antidepressants, lithium was much more effective than placebo (The findings indicate efficacy of lithium as a treatment for some aspects of major depressive disorder, especially as an add-on to antidepressants and for long-term prophylaxis.