Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlotte
It really is Lithium. It's salt, so it makes patients swell up like a balloon especially in the stomach area. They can look heavily pregnant.
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^^I thought of that immediately too, as i'm also familiar
(not thru personal use) with the side effects of Lithium. I've noticed Britney's been steadily gaining weight ever since her father took control & got her on mood-stabilizing drugs. (-Which apparently have helped her greatly. Afterall,
ANYTHING is better than being
SO CRAZY that she held her kids hostage, got into a confrontation with police, was hauled off literally strapped down to a gurney in the back of an ambulance & then held in the Mental Ward against her will!! -Not to even get into: LOSING CUSTODY OF HER KIDS & the completely CRAZY, OUT-OF-CONTROL, BONKERS, SUBSTANCE-ABUSING, OUT-OF-TOUCH-WITH-REALITY way she was living her life just before that final horrible episode!!) I personally think the Lithium weight-gain is a relatively small trade-off for gaining some sanity in her life. But back to what i started off saying, which is: Yes, like you said Charlotte, Lithium DOES indeed make you gain weight in the fashion that Britney has. It's an unfortunate but VERY common side-effect. Of course, the weight gain COULD BE due to pregnancy (God, i hope not!), but, the first thing that came to my mind upon seeing "Chunky Britney" was, "Oh Britney is experiencing what pretty much almost all patients on Lithium or Depakote (another common Bipolar Disorder med) go through: significant weight gain." I HOPE that's the reason!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlotte
It's been known to stack 200 pounds on a person in a very short period of time.
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^^Yes i've known of people putting on 200 pounds (and even more!) quite quickly, due to their Bipolar Disorder meds like Lithium. I remember one client
(i work in a law firm) who ballooned from a 170-pound high-school track star, to weighing 350 pounds, in an astonishingly-fast time period after being put on Lithium. THAT level of weight gain is very unfortunate. Whatever helps though.--I'm of the opinion that there's little else in life as painful, as severe mental illness.