Why may one get prescribed instead of the other* minor grammar mistake 💀🤦🏻♂️
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Fundamentally they both have the effect of increasing your serotonin levels, but they do this by different mechanisms. SSRIs work by blocking serotonin from being reabsorbed into your brain cells, which means there’s more of it in the spaces between your brain cells, which is where it works. MAOIs on the other hand, block the function of the enzyme that breaks down serotonin.
SSRIs are almost always preferred over MAOIs for a number of reasons. One of the biggest reason is that the enzyme that MAOIs block also breaks down a bunch of other chemicals in your brain, which means MAOIs interfere with the function of all those chemicals too, which means you have far more side effects. MAOIs also interact with a ton of other medications and even common foods, so you’re really limiting not only what other medications you can take but even what basic foods you can eat. MAOIs are really limited to uses where SSRIs and other medications have failed.
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