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I was reading off the back label of a Nyquil bottle and I realized instead of dextromethorphan, it said dextromethorphan HBr.

I also realized that instead of phenylephrine, it said phenylephrine HCl.

Do HBr and HCl give any medical advantages? Or are they included in the medication simply because such substances cannot be removed during synthesis?

I don't know anything about pharmacological science, so any help will be appreciated.

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    Hi gagagaga, welcome to Medical Sciences. Questions here are required to show results of prior research. As described in the help center and this meta post, this demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to try to help yourself, saves us from reiterating obvious answers, and helps you get more specific and relevant answers. Please edit your question with links to or references to what you've found in your search. Otherwise your question may be closed.
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    @IanCampbell, I understand the basic principle of requiring prior research in this site, but in this (and plenty of other cases) the OP says outright that they don't have any knowledge of pharmacological science, so what's the point? It is very difficult to find information in fields you know nothing about - that is the reason these people come HERE. Obviously you don't want to waste time on banalities, but in my opinion this is not the case. I realize this belongs in a meta post, but it's important to see this in context.
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    @Don_S All we ask is that users spend 5 minutes with a search engine just to find out if the answer is immediately available. If it isn't, they can then at least come to the table with some basic background and say, "I searched for X but all I found was this...." The bar is set very low. Just saying you tried and what you found is sufficient.
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    @Don_S - Pressing a point is fine, and your right as a member of this community. Why don't you bring it up in meta?
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    @Don_S Please do raise the question in meta. We close a lot of questions for lack of prior research and sometimes it pains me to do so because I think it's a good question, but we know from past experience that if we don't require at least a little effort we'll be inundated with trivial questions that are readily answered by the first hit in google. So if we want to make exceptions, then the community needs to agree on objective criteria for identifying questions that meet the exception. Just leaving it to the mods isn't a good solution.
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Dextromethorphan and dextromethorphan HBr are the same as are dextromethorphan and dextromethorphan HCL

HCL (hydrochloride) is a salt added to medicine to ease in digestion or absorption. HBr (hydrobromide) is used for the same purpose. These salts are sometimes included on labels, but it is recommended that they be excluded in most cases to reduce confusion.

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