What is your approach to duration, dosing, and continuation of lithium monotherapy in patients with a single lifetime manic episode stabilized on lithium?

There are a number of variables involved here in making this decision. It only takes one manic episode in a lifetime to make the diagnosis of bipolar one. However, when deciding the duration of lithium, I would like to know what the rest of the patient’s mood trajectory has been. Are they pretty muc...

Sometimes lithium is the only thing that works for patients with bipolar disorder, and in those cases, we also need to look at the calcium level because long-term use can also cause hyperparathyroidism. This is why we should look at labs every 3-6 months to monitor. If lithium is the only thing that...