Lithium and Kidney Disease

Kidneys are vital organs for producing urine and at the same time to help purify the blood and remove wasteful products out of the body. Our kidneys have great compensatory ability and patients often have no obvious discomforts until more than 50% of the kidney functions are damaged. But on the other hand, the kidneys are also very fragile because many factors can cause renal damages and renal impairments.

Here we will talk about the renal toxicity and potential renal damages caused by lithium. Lithium has no impact on healthy people’s mental health and it has long been used to treat bipolar disorder for many years.

However lithium has many side effects. In the early stage after taking the drug, patients can experience nausea, vomiting, fatigue, shiver, dry mouth, increased urine volume, etc. As for its relation with kidney disease, that is one serious side effect of lithium.

Improper intake of lithium can cause a series of kidney problems such as nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, nephrotic syndrome, renal tubular acidosis or even acute renal failure. Lithium toxicity often cause the kidneys unable to hold water any more and lots of water will be lost and in some cases severe dehydration will develop. When dehydration occurs, there will be sudden decreased blood flow to the kidneys and the blood plasma can become very high and this is very harmful to the brain if it goes or comes in rapid cycles or if this condition often happens.

If it is a must for you to take lithium, there is a safe dosage. During the treatment period with lithium, it is necessary to measure lithium concentration in the blood and the dosage should be reduced or the drug should be stopped immediately if serum lithium is higher than 1.5-2.0. Timely intravenous injection of saline can promote the excretion of lithium from the bloodstream and ease the symptoms and harms.