Small Percentage of Patients Do Not Re-Respond After Stopping Lithium
Researcher Ralph Kupka reviewed the literature on the small subgroup of patients who do well on long-term lithium treatment, stop taking the drug, suffer a relapse, and then fail to re-respond as well as they had (or, in some cases, at all) once they begin taking lithium again. These observations are supported by small case series, and appear to occur in approximately 10 to 15% of patients who stop taking lithium. Slowly tapering off lithium treatment did not seem to influence whether or not patients would re-respond to lithium later, while there was some indication that more time off lithium could lower the likelihood of a good re-response.
Earlier data from researcher Trisha Suppes suggested that slowly tapering off lithium treatment (over about two weeks) is superior to tapering rapidly (over a few days), and a slow taper reduced the rate of relapse. Kupka added that he would taper lithium even more slowly (over a period of one to two months) so that early signs of relapse could more readily be observed.
