Does Lithium help with depression?

I've recently been put on lithium. It's been made clear to me that due to the rapid cycling nature of my illness, I won't be getting any antidepressants as it's too risky. How much of an effect lithium has on preventing/treating your depression?

Lithium prevents the highs, which lessens the likelihood of having a low due to a crash.

Yes it does help with depression... in combination with an SSRI. You can combine Lithium with an SSR and it is much less risky than an SSRI alone. Worked for me.

It helped me tremendously at first. Then it atacked my thyriod, so i needed thyroid hormones. Then it attacked my skin, i got neurodermitis... so i needed cortisol. (I also got athlete's foot a lot, never had problems before, had much fewer problems afterwards) Then it attacked my immune system, so i got allergic to all kinds of things i wasn't before (and it went away after i took no more Lithium)... so i needed antihistaminics at times. And then it attacked my nerves, causing myoclonus in my hands - we tried to get it under control with Dociton. But it didn't work. Even over a year later, i still sometimes get a myoclonus in my lfet hand. (Tardive dyskinesia?)
I was on 5 different medications at the end. Once i got rid of the Lithium, i could get rid of all of them. It helps. It helps better than neuroleptics. But for me, it began to destroy my body. My mind was fine.

Lithium helped with depression. After taking it for 2 years and being fine with my lab work, I decided on my own that it was making my hair thin out and I didn't want to maybe go bald, so I switched and it wasn't easy. It took months to get me to a new stable self, but the medicine so far, is working. I liked lithium, though. I just had no idea it would do that to my hair. Sorry if this sounds vain but when your hair dresser tells you you have such fine, thinned out hair and won't do highlights, and it seems to fall off easily, I just said, no thanks I'll try other drugs out there.