My favorite thing about taking lithium is that it’s cheap as hell. I remember when I was first prescribed lithium — after taking several proprietary medications — was the steep drop in price. As you probably know, drugs that are owned by one specific company are pretty expensive, whereas generic meds are much more affordable. And lithium, which is literally just an element, isn’t owned by anyone. So it rangers from dirt cheap to pretty cheap, depending on whether or not Elon Musk is using all of it up to build expensive cars that make an irritating whirring sound.
But how does lithium — atomic number 3, aka A PRETTY BIG DEAL on the Periodic Table — help my brain work better?
The short answer is that no one really knows. Like, my doctors have told me specifically that it’s unclear how this soft, white metal interacts with the brain. But we know that it works! And it’s been working for decades.
Urine trouble now!
Discovered in Sweden in the 1790s(ish, I’ve found some conflicting reports) in Sweden, lithium wasn’t isolated until the middle of the next century. In The History of Lithium Therapy, author F. Neil Johnson described how the metal went from being “a substance of which no therapeutic application has been heretofore made” to a remarkable solution for kidney stones. A few years later, another doctor started using lithium as a treatment for gout, which spurred increased mining of the substance to keep up with demand.
It’s unfortunate how much of a role whiz plays in lithium’s history but, you know. You work with what you’ve got.
In the 1950s, an Australian veteran named Dr. John Cade began experimenting with guinea pigs and…well, pee. Like literally injecting the urine of patients at a nearby mental institution into guinea pigs to see what would happen.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction was not great. RIP those innocent cavies. But at least Dr. Cade acknowledged his imperfect laboratory setting. This is a direct quote from him:
Because I did not know what the substance might be, still less anything of its pharmacology for lower animals, the best plan seemed to be to spread the net as wide as possible and use the crudest form of biological test in a preliminary investigation."
The only solution seemed to be to devise an extraordinarily crude differential toxicity test and discover whether any differentials emerged. And crude it was.
Cade wasn’t a total monster, though — he actually tried lithium on numerous occasions to ensure that it was safe for human consumption because…science? But he was willing to be his own guinea pig for the cause, which I think is kind of nice.
Anyway, Cade would go collect pee from the local sanitarium every day and then use it. And one thing he found was that a.) mania pee was very lethal and b.) the pee of patients who had been using lithium for gout seemed to kill the guinea pigs less quickly.
That’s literally how lithium as a treatment for psychological ailments, specifically bipolar disorder. Pee. In guinea pigs.
Cade narrowed his focus in on the impacts of lithium on mania (on people this time) and found it to be hugely effective. He became the first scientist to publish on the subject and then we were off to the races.
Kurt Cobain named a whole song after it. So. It must be cool.
You want to know what a big deal lithium is? Lithium is hot shit. According to WebMD aka Health Care In America, lithium “is one of the most widely used and studied medications for treating bipolar disorder.” Britney Spears was on it!!!
The history of lithium is interested because there are some places in the world where an experiment has been conducted without anyone realizing. Lithium naturally occurs in some water supplies, which has been found to lower suicide rates in those areas. It’s just there, secretly being magical. Scientists have even recommended adding it to the municipal drinking water supply — but considering crunchy dipshits have a meltdown over fluoride, this seems far-fetched at present.
Anyway, lithium has come a long way, baby. It’s solidified its place among the ranks of most well-known drugs, even by people who don't take it (though it’s not always positive; remember “Garden State”?).
And, as I said before, it’s still cheap. Which is really ideal for a lot of us who need something to reign in our wild moods but don’t have a spare $300 per month for brand-name Effexor or whatever they’re taking.
In An Unquiet Mind, which is the bipolar Bible, Kay Redfield Jamison describes lithium’s impact perfectly:
Lithium prevents my seductive but disastrous highs, diminishes my depressions, clears out the wool and webbing from my disordered thinking, slows me down, gentles me out, keeps me from ruining my career and relationships, keeps me out of a hospital, alive, and makes psychotherapy possible.
SAME, GIRL.
And to think, we have all this relief thanks to a few dozen small rodents who gave their lives to get daily piss injections.
We salute them.
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