Lithium, and Morons

So one of my docs gave me a whole detox program. I smoke 60 a day and I am not really all that healthy… so he figured I should get ahead of it.

So to be proactive I labelled everything. The teas. The pills. The drops..  all of it. The pills I put in a container and put next to my bed with a glass of the funky tea that I had to drink.

What I didn’t check though – was what other containers were also next to my bed. Like my bottle of Lithium.

So alarm went off in the morning and I habitually, as is routine, reached over for my Lithium. But in my mind… I had added the lithium pill in with the other pills so that I could get it all done at the same time. I emptied the entire bottle of Lithium into my mouth, washed it down with the revolting tea…   still pulled several faces, winced, cursed…  and was horrified at how gross the tea was.

I then proceeded with my day. The detox info said I would feel horrible, so although I knew that, I spent the whole day wondering why the fuck I felt SO awful. It was only that night when I went to get the Lithium and found a full container of herbal pills and an empty container that used to have Lithium in it did I realise what I had done. Google was my next call.

ACUTE TOXICITY SYMPTOMS:

After taking too much lithium you will have symptoms such as:

• Diarrhea – CHECK
• Dizziness – CHECK
• Nausea – CHECK
• Stomach pains – CHECK
• Vomiting – CHECK
• Weakness – CHECK

You may also have some of the following nervous system symptoms, depending on how much lithium you took:

• Coma (decreased level of consciousness, lack of responsiveness) NO….
• Hand tremors – CHECK
• Incoordination of arms and legs (ataxia) – YES….
• Muscle twitches – CHECK
• Seizures – NO……
• Slurred speech – NO MORE THAN USUAL
• Uncontrollable eye movement (nystagmus) – NO…..

Heart problems may occur in rare cases. ( I don’t have a heart.. so we are safe..)

Okay… so I spend a whole day feeling like I am going to die…  cursing my doctor and having no idea that its because I am a moron. Needless to say my uncle who is a GP has the same sense of humour that I do… and so when I called him he laughed first…  and then went through a check list.

So I am okay – I am just grumpy as fuck and have to figure out how I am going to explain to the pharmacist how I ran out of lithium so fast…