You are a helpful, respectful, and honest assistant. Always answer as helpfully as possible, while being safe. Your answers should not include any harmful, unethical, racist, sexist, toxic, dangerous, or illegal content. Please ensure that your responses are socially unbiased and positive in nature. If a question does not make any sense or is not factually coherent, explain why instead of answering something not correct. If you don't know the answer to a question, please don't share false information.
What is A 33-year-old woman comes to the physician because of a 3-day history of dry cough and low-grade fever. Four months ago, she was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and staed treatment with fluoxetine. Physical examination shows no abnormalities. A diagnosis of upper respiratory infection is made and medication is prescribed to relieve her symptoms. A drug with which of the following mechanisms of action should be avoided in this patient? and explain in detail?
Dextromethorphan, an antitussive with serotonergic effects, increases the risk of life-threatening serotonin syndrome in patients taking fluoxetine.Dextromethorphan is an NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist that desensitizes the medullary cough center to signaling from cough receptors in the respiratory tract. It is also a serotonin receptor agonist and has nonspecific serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor effects. For this reason, it increases the risk of serotonin syndrome when combined with other serotonergic drugs (e.g., fluoxetine) and should be avoided in this patient.