Yes here's the downside to lithium and depakote.
Lithium is quite hard on the kidneys you can develop a tubal lesion which requires transplant or your micoralbumin ratio elevates after years of use. Also diabete insipidous is quite common.
Depakote depletes the body of carnitine this is an essential element in the mitochondrial chain for the use of free fatty acids makes it difficult to enter ketosis and you gain weight quite easily.\
Also contradicting studies on the effects of lithium on glucose, still unable to post links.
Effect of lithium on plasma glucose, insulin and glucagon in normal and streptozotocin-diabetic rats: role of glucagon in the hyperglycaemic response.
Hermida OG, Fontela T, Ghiglione M, Uttenthal LO.
Source
Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, C.S.I.C., Madrid, Spain.
Abstract
1. Lithium salts, used in the treatment of affective disorders, may have adverse effects on glucose tolerance in man, and suppress glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in rats. 2. To study the interaction of these effects with pre-existing diabetes mellitus, plasma glucose and insulin responses to lithium chloride were measured in male Wistar rats made diabetic with intraperitoneal streptozotocin, and in normal controls. 3. In both normal and diabetic anaesthetized rats, intravenous lithium (4 mEq kg-1) caused a rise in plasma glucose. In absolute terms, the rise was greater in diabetic (5.2 mmol l-1) than in normal rats (2.3 mmol l-1). 4. Plasma insulin concentrations were reduced by lithium in normal rats, but the low insulin concentrations measured in the diabetic rats were not significantly changed. 5. After intravenous glucose (0.5 g kg-1), lithium-treated diabetic rats showed a second rise in plasma glucose at 60-90 min without any insulin response, while normal rats showed typically reduced insulin responses and initial glucose disappearance rates. 6. Intravenous glucose reduced plasma glucagon concentrations to a greater extent in normal than in diabetic rats, but lithium induced an equal rise in plasma glucagon in both groups, with a time-course similar to that of the hyperglycaemic effect. 7. The hyperglycaemic action of lithium is greater in the hypoinsulinaemic diabetic rats and appears to involve a stimulation of glucagon secretion in both normal and diabetic animals.