Did you know that mental health medication can affect you in the heat?

With this in mind, temperatures in the UK reached over 30 degrees Celsius over the past few weeks. It’s essential to know how medication can affect our mental health.
Some of us love the heat, but it’s different to going abroad, and I certainly didn’t enjoy working in the heat or working out in the hot sunshine.

For people like myself who take strong mental health medication in a country not used to these temperatures, this weather is certainly no fun.

Then, we can add that I have bipolar disorder and take a daily medication- if not managed correctly, it can send my blood and body toxic. This has never happened as I have avoided excessive exercise and drink lots of water in the heat.

I take Lamictal for Bipolar 2, where Patients experience an itchy skin rash on the skin exposed to sunlight. Lamotrigine is prescribed to treat several forms of epilepsy and bipolar disorders.

Studies have shown that those with mental illness are at higher risk during heat waves. A 2012 Wisconsin heat wave study, which killed 27 people, found that more than half of those who died had a mental illness, and half were taking psychiatric medication.

Lithium, a mood stabilising medicine in the heat, is relatively well known. It is a natural salt dehydrating the body, so if you don’t drink enough water or eat enough salt, the level of Lithium in the blood saturates and becomes too high- toxic.

Signs of lithium toxicity include nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea, confusion, drowsiness, slurred speech, increased thirst and lack of coordination of muscles. Severe toxicity signs are blurred vision, painful muscle spasms, seizures and coma.

For those who take Quetiapine, this stops sufferers from developing mania and psychosis. This, taken with other medication, can impair the body’s ability to regulate its temperature.

By writing this blog and highlighting these side effects, I hope more people will be aware of what affects people with bipolar, schizophrenia/ schizoaffective disorder, psychosis, depression and other illnesses where anti-psychotic meds are used.

Stay safe in this heat! Do your meds affect you?