Need to Understand Lithium Dumping

[drmullin30]

Curious how you ended up dealing with your copper toxicity....

It was a combination of getting my methylation and thyroid working and using copper antagonists to help remove copper or make it bioavailable. The most important copper antagonists are molybdenum, chromium, manganese and of course zinc.

Oxalates will also cause high free copper if you have a problem (oxalates block transporters into the cell) so the low oxalate diet also promotes copper balance.

 

[uglevod]

Oxalates will also cause high free copper if you have a problem (oxalates block transporters into the cell) so the low oxalate diet also promotes copper balance.

that's very interesting - do you have any references to read more on oxalates induced copper blockade?

p.s. copper is important for immunity:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4521016/
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsinfecdis.8b00171
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4521620/

 

[drmullin30]

@uglevod, this article discussed this issue and more:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health...-of-oxalates-in-autism-and-chronic-disorders/
Also a good article:
https://mthfrsupport.com/2018/03/understanding-sulfation-and-oxalate/

 

[drmullin30]

So I'm updating this thread with my experience with Lithium. I finally got my hands on some lithium orotate and I was taking 5 mg per day for about a month. A week and a half ago I woke up at 4AM with the worst tachycardia and palpitations maybe I've ever had. As well, I was experiencing extremely high anxiety, in fact, it was a full blown panic attack and I was terrified I had done some kind of permanent neurological or kidney damage.

I initially assumed something had really tanked my potassium but taking potassium actually made things worse and I finally figured out that magnesium was the problem. I realized after doing research that the lithium had caused a deep magnesium deficiency (they are antagonistic) which caused the anxiety, tachycardia and palpitations. In addition, I have several COMT SNPs and lithium can actually slow down this enzyme leading to anxiety and panic symptoms in come cases. Magnesium will speed up the COMT enzyme which is one reason it's good for anxiety for some people.

Since this came on so suddenly with no warning for over a month of lithium supplementation at very low doses (5mg/day), I also believe I had stored a bunch of lithium possibly in my kidneys and thyroid and that this was a lithium dump.

I haven't taken the lithium orotate since that incident and it took several days of high dose magnesium citrate supplementation to stop the symptoms. Several other positive (?) developments in the week or so since this incident include the fact that I need about half or less of the vitamin b12 and folate I needed before this incident. If I take too much of either, I get similar anxiety and palpitations. Also, I no longer need hardly any potassium supplementation and haven't actually taken any supplemental potassium in almost a week. My copper needs are also way down since this happened.

Since stopping the lithium orotate, the anxiety and cardiac symptoms have disappeared, I took my iodine this morning with no issues but I'm still only taking roughly half the folate and b12 and I also started taking my trace elements supplement again and it contains lithium (1mg) and I had no issues with that.

Another thing that made me worse when I was magnesium deficient was benfotiamine or B1. This is also a magnesium antagonist so I stopped taking it for a while but I took it this morning and no issues.

Lithium has a very narrow range of effectiveness versus toxicity but I'm not sure if I was lithium toxic or if I experienced a lithium dump or if something else got dumped out that caused the problem. Whatever it was it caused a sudden and severe drop in magnesium so this could also be related to oxalate dumping. Has anyone else had this kind of experience with lithium or this kind of sudden magnesium deficiency?

My magnesium needs are back to normal now and I am planning to re-start the lithium orotate in a smaller dose as before or maybe only take it once a week. Before this incident, lithium had done wonders already for my electrolyte and copper balance and my mood and I am extremely happy about the reduction in my copper, potassium and b-vitamin needs but I'm very worried my body or my kidneys don't or can't handle lithium properly.

Any insight anyone can provide is greatly appreciated.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention was that I had also been taking fairly high dose vitamin K2 (400-500 mcg/day) for a couple of months as part of my oxalate treatment program and after researching I found out it is also a strong magnesium antagonist so I cut that back to one dose, 120 mcg per day.

 

[Wayne]

Another thing that made me worse when I was magnesium deficient was benfotiamine or B1.

Hi @Drmulin30 -- Thanks for your great writeup. I take both lithium and benfotiamine, so I found your information inightful, and will be considering it carefully going forward.

 

[Kadar]

@drmullin30 Happy to hear that. I too had anxiety and palpitations from lithium but I didn't check if magnesium helps. I've read on acu-cell site and in some forums that lithium deplete iodine and iodine has some connection to magnesium (through b2 tho. Did you have symptoms of b2 deficiency?)

And I didn't understand, you had no worsening symptoms for month or a week after supplementing lithium?

 

[Methyl90]

Does lithium also promote AdenoB12 retention or just the methylated form?

 

[Kadar]

Used lithium again and again got same symptoms (anxiety, palpitations, insomnia + feeling cold and muscle cramps) . Successfully treated with iodine

 

[Methyl90]

Used lithium again and again got same symptoms (anxiety, palpitations, insomnia + feeling cold and muscle cramps) . Successfully treated with iodine

Did you take lithium continuously every day and in what dosage?

 

[Kadar]

@Methyl90 I used maybe 15mg/d for 3 days. But I'm hypothyroid (and hyper too) by symptoms, seems I almost don't have iodine stored so lithium gave side effects very soon

 

[Methyl90]

@Methyl90 I used maybe 15mg/d for 3 days. But I'm hypothyroid (and hyper too) by symptoms, seems I almost don't have iodine stored so lithium gave side effects very soon

Do you mean orotate or elemental ?

 

[Kadar]

@Methyl90 yeah, orotate

 

[drmullin30]

Hi All,

So I'm back up to 5 mg/day of lithium orotate and I haven't had any issues. I don't even need the extra magnesium any more.

@Kadar had a good point about iodine though. I had cut back on my iodine dosage a while back due to hyperthyroid symptoms but with the addition of lithium my iodine need has doubled. I was taking 400 mcg a few times a week or every other day. With 5 mg/day of lithium, I need 800 mcg every other day and I may need to increase that, we'll see.

Iodine and lithium are antagonistic.

With respect to riboflavin, I already take over 100 mg per day of b2 (R5P) so I was covered there.

I am now under the impression that my incident was some kind of toxin dump. Not sure what it was but the nature of the reaction leads me to believe it was mercury or potentially some old drugs. This could have been a combination of oxalate dumping and lithium induced detox.

Either way, I see this as a positive development in favor of lithium. I am again enjoying greatly reduced need for b12 and folate as well as potassium. Some of that reduction is attributable to my vastly improved oxalate status but Lithium is a real force multiplier for b12 and folate.

The mood stabilization from lithium is amazing and the main reason I'm continuing to use it.

 

[Methyl90]

Hi All,

So I'm back up to 5 mg/day of lithium orotate and I haven't had any issues. I don't even need the extra magnesium any more.

@Kadar had a good point about iodine though. I had cut back on my iodine dosage a while back due to hyperthyroid symptoms but with the addition of lithium my iodine need has doubled. I was taking 400 mcg a few times a week or every other day. With 5 mg/day of lithium, I need 800 mcg every other day and I may need to increase that, we'll see.

Iodine and lithium are antagonistic.

With respect to riboflavin, I already take over 100 mg per day of b2 (R5P) so I was covered there.

I am now under the impression that my incident was some kind of toxin dump. Not sure what it was but the nature of the reaction leads me to believe it was mercury or potentially some old drugs. This could have been a combination of oxalate dumping and lithium induced detox.

Either way, I see this as a positive development in favor of lithium. I am again enjoying greatly reduced need for b12 and folate as well as potassium. Some of that reduction is attributable to my vastly improved oxalate status but Lithium is a real force multiplier for b12 and folate.

The mood stabilization from lithium is amazing and the main reason I'm continuing to use it.

How much elemental lithium does 5mg of orotate correspond to?

 

[drmullin30]

How much elemental lithium does 5mg of orotate correspond to?

It's this one: https://www.pureencapsulationspro.com/lithium-orotate-5-mg.html

I believe it's 5 mg of elemental lithium so I don't know what that is in terms of lithium orotate but this supplement delivers 5 mg elemental as far as I understand.

 

[Methyl90]

It's this one: https://www.pureencapsulationspro.com/lithium-orotate-5-mg.html

I believe it's 5 mg of elemental lithium so I don't know what that is in terms of lithium orotate but this supplement delivers 5 mg elemental as far as I understand.

Wrong, be very careful with the titles ... I just wrote that in Fred's discussion of methylation internships .... Check it out. If it's 5mg of lithium orotate then you will have 150 to 250mcg of elemental lithium. This said roughly.

 

[drmullin30]

Wrong, be very careful with the titles ... I just wrote that in Fred's discussion of methylation internships .... Check it out. If it's 5mg of lithium orotate then you will have 150 to 250mcg of elemental lithium. This said roughly.

So the capsules are pretty big, they contain 200 mg of NAC as well but 100 mg lithium orotate = roughly 5 mg of elemental lithium. I would say that given the label and the size of the capsules as well as the effect compared to smaller doses I used to get from my Trace Elements, I'm quite certain these deliver 5 mg of elemental lithium. they look to contain about 300 mg of total powder.

This website says lithium orotate is usually delivered in 5 mg elemental doses: https://selfhacked.com/blog/lithium-orotate-dosage-safety/

This website says it's elemental lithium: https://martinswellness.com/lithium-orotate-5mg-90ct.html
-"Offers 5 mg elemental lithium"

The label also says "Lithium (as Lithium Orotate) = 5mg" I know from zinc labelling that when they label this way it usually means elemental. Why would Pure encapsulations, one of the best supplement companies in the world use misleading labelling?

I've added some photos one of the label and the other shows a small capsule which is a B1 80 mg the large capsule is the lithium orotate.

I would be interested to see any references or evidence to back up your claim with respect to this particular supplement.

 

[Methyl90]

It about blows me away that lithium reinstates homeostasis I needed to use brute force method of getting B12, in the forms of MeCbl and AdoCbl, into my CNS to keep it from falling apart. From about 2007 to some time last year, I needed 3x10mg (or 4 x 7.5 mg) of MeCbl each day and the healing and better feeling lasted about 8 hours. THe threshold for MeCbl showing up in urine at 2.4 mg sc injection with folic acid at a bit more than 1 hour, 4,2 mg SC injection at 4.2 mg between 1 and 2 hours. I have been tapering the MeCbl. Right now I 'm down to 5 mg once a week and it shows up in the urine at about 12 hours. COB[II] which is what is left after the Lithium strips off ligand is very reactive and is protected and apparently stored such that it is available to the CNS all the time from the TCR-Li. I am hypothesizing here but it's the best I can put together with all the things it does. Also it requires either COB[II] or MeCbl and AdoCbl for the CNS. In the absence of COB[II} both active forms are needed plus the l-methylfolate and the L-carnitine in a body can't make with the body's current deficiencies,.

I tried for 4 or 5 years to get my copper up to a functional level. It started to be absorbed and retained bring my level up over the past almost 2 years, the total time I've been starting and titrating the lithium orotate 5 mg (240 mcg of Li) to 20 mg of Lithium orotate. My liver healed. My hyper responses to all sorts of things have gone away. I'm below 1500 mg of potassium after years of 3-5 grams of potassium. My main deficiency has been lithium needed to make the TCR-Li so I was functionally lacking the TCR-Li and almost couldn't get B12 into my nervous system and making the cobalamin into it's catalyst form. In it's micronutrient forms and amounts it doesn't do the damage the 200-300 mg does of lithium used in the psychiatric and kidney damaging amounts. Instead the kidneys grow a lot of TCR and reclaims and retains the B12 from ending up in the urine before the absorption cycle is finished. All this fits in every bit of journal articles I've read on the subject and all my responses and others with responses. I've never known of anybody going from needing 210 mg a week to 5 mg of MeCbl (and still decreasing) a week and one sublingual dose of AdoCbl that absorbs more now than it ever did before, enough to see it excreted in urine. Also the AdoCbl still has an obvious body effect but not a noticeable CNS effect.

P:art of the problem appears to be that COB[II} isn't self booting. If there isn't any it can't make any more TCR-Li. It turns out to be part of the deadlock quintet rather than quartet. However, brute force gets enough MeCbl/AdoCbl to absorb and gradually grow the TCRE-Li convert other varieties to COB[II] that then can sustain the growth and refresh cycles for the TCR-Li.. No wonder nobody has found this. Everybody was trying to describe B12 in terms that to those of us with certaIn problems appears to be a myth.

I have blood tests each 3 months. After many months shifting all over, they are reaching a desirable balance. My minerals had never been able to all be in balance before. Right now my testosterone went higher than ever before as copper and other things increased and balanced and with my doc we determine what dose changes I need. The changing hormones with genetic problems can be a problem, male or female, and need to be watched and managed.

I still need the same amount of l-methylfolate but it seems to have stopped having to alternate to between Metafolin and Quatrefolic every few months to remain effective. The carnitines don't switch around either any more. They are all the same, no best one. I can't tell the difference between a 5 star MeCbl or a zero star MeCbl. My first shout in my face response was hypokalemia from hell at 6 months of 240 mcg of lithium, when red cell maturing started up hard when I got up to 7000 feet driving over the continental divide. It can happen in hours compared to all other cell forming causes of hypokalemia becasue the young red cells are already there and just need to mature.

Be well.

 

[drmullin30]

@Methyl90, your experience parallels EXACTLY to Freddd. I believe that you and Freddd have VERY bad SNPs on the TCN gene that means lithium is critical for you to utilize b12.

I also have a few SNPs on this gene so the lithium has been important for me as well. I've noticed a HUGE drop in b12 need. In roughly two months of lithium supplementation my b12 needs, both adeno and methyl, has dropped in half!

I have also seen a significant drop in my folate copper and potassium needs but I still need to supplement significant doses. Folate = 25 - 35 mg per day down from 45 mg per day. Copper is down to 8-12 mg per day from 16-20 mg per day, potassium is down to roughly 1500-2000 mg per day from 4-5 grams daily.

As far as the need for switching the folate I have the same thing but it is now less frequent.

So all around lithium has been excellent for me but it seems like for you and Freddd and maybe others it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!

I haven't tried adding more lithium yet but I think I'm going to start trying to add back in my trace elements supplement which will add another 1-2 mg of elemental lithium.

 

[Shanti1]

wo years ago I did a Hair Analysis (Hair Elements) and my Li was off the charts high. I was not supplementing with Li at the time or B12 either, except a B Complex capsule with a tiny bit of methylB12. So then 5 days later I had my Dr. check Li in blood work, and it was very low (<0.3; ref: 0.6-1.2 mmol/L). I conveyed this to Yasko and the response I got was a referral to “dumping” and that I should supplement with Li and keep rechecking with Hair Analysis tests.

I know this post was from a while ago, but in case you are still working on this, I think it is important to recognize that hair analysis will give you "functional results" comparing your Li levels to those in the general population. The blood work levels (range 0.6-1.2 nmol/L) are the target range to hit for doctor monitoring people on lithium medication, which is about 1000x higher dose than low-dose-lithium. So anyone who is not taking lithium as a medication should test low or below detection on blood work as you can only hit the target if you are taking large amounts of lithium.