Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I am your host, pharmacist, Eric Christensen.

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All right, let's get into the drug of the day today, and that is dextromythorfen.

Brand name of this medication is Delsum, Robitussin, another common one I see is Choracidin,

and there are definitely other over-the-counter products that dextromathorfen is contained within.

The way I educate patients about this is if you ever see cough and cold or cough on the label,

anything associated with that, very commonly, not all the time, but very commonly, it will

contain dextromathorfen. So that's such a crucial patient education point, you need to look

at the back of the label and see what is in some of these cough and cold preparations because it's

not always the same. And depending upon the other drugs and the other conditions a patient has,

it can lead to problems,

and I've certainly seen that throughout my practice.

So, broad classification of this medication, it's an antitussive, it helps reduce coughing,

and it does that mechanistically by depressing the medullary cough center in the brain.

And this is actually through the Sigma opioid receptor. So that's a little bit different

than the mu opioid receptor. And so that is an important distinction to note there.

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