This NHS content is written for people in England. Medicine names, availability, prescribing and services may differ in other countries.
Lithium is a type of medicine known as a mood stabiliser. It's used to treat mood disorders such as:
- mania (feeling highly excited, overactive or distracted)
- hypo-mania (similar to mania, but less severe)
- regular periods of depression, where treatment with other medicines has not worked
- bipolar disorder, where your mood changes between feeling very high (mania) and very low (depression)
Lithium can also help reduce aggressive or self-harming behaviour.
Lithium is available on prescription.
It comes as regular tablets or slow-release tablets (lithium carbonate). Brand names for the tablets include Priadel, Camcolit and Liskonum. It also comes as a liquid that you swallow (lithium citrate). Common brands of lithium liquid are Priadel and Li-liquid.
View the original NHS website page ↗. Refreshed 19 August 2026.
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