

They watched a video and it told them exactly how many milligrams to take and to see how it made them feel,” she said. These kids weren’t trying to harm themselves. “We have seen kids who overdose in suicide attempts,” Amber Jewison, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Cook Children’s Medical Center, told WFAA-TV. In severe cases, you may experience delirium, psychosis, seizures, or coma,” she said. “In mild cases, side effects include sleepiness, dry mouth, constipation, and inability to pass urine. “It is dangerous to take excessive amounts of diphenhydramine as there is a long list of possible side effects that come with diphenhydramine poisoning,” Nouhavandi said.

Each tablet of the drug typically contains 25 mg. Jessica Nouhavandi, PharmD, the lead pharmacist, co-founder, and co-CEO of online pharmacy Honeybee Health, told Healthline that the maximum 24-hour dose of Benadryl is 300 milligrams (mg). These people are essentially prescribing medication without a medical degree and our kids are trusting them,” she said. I just want other parents to know about this because it’s dangerous and I had no idea. I never thought about having to lock up my allergy medicine. “As a parent, you worry about drugs and you know the signs for drug use. Her resting heart rate was 199,” said the teen’s mother in a press statement released by Cook Children’s Medical Center. She had fractured sentences, hallucinations. One of the teens ended up in the emergency room after taking 14 Benadryl pills. Previously, Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, issued a warning to parents about the Benadryl challenge after treating three teens who overdosed on the drug in May.

However, Benadryl, or diphenhydramine, has many side effects that can be dangerous or even fatal,” Cindy Grant, director of the Hillsborough County Anti-Drug Alliance in Florida, told Healthline. “Many youth believe over-the-counter drugs, like Benadryl, are harmless. In August, a 15-year-old reportedly died after doing the “Benadryl challenge” on the short-form video platform TikTok.Ī family member of Chloe Marie Phillips of Blanchard, Oklahoma, blamed the Benadryl challenge for the teen’s death in a Facebook post, which was later deleted. The online video encourages viewers to take excessive doses of Benadryl (diphenhydramine) to induce hallucinations. The situation has concerned officials at the Food and Drug Administration enough that they issued a warning on Thursday against the “serious problems” that can occur if you ingest too much Benadryl. Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of Benadryl, has posted a warning about the challenge, and TikTok officials said they’ve been removing posts that publicize the challenge.īut some teens and children are intentionally overdosing on the over-the-counter antihistamine as part of a social media “challenge” that may have already turned deadly.Experts say excessive doses of Benadryl can cause serious health issues, even causing death in some situations.A challenge posted on TikTok known as the “Benadryl challenge” encourages viewers to take large doses of the antihistamine to induce hallucinations.Share on Pinterest Experts say excessive doses of Benadryl can cause serious health issues, including death in some instances.
