In the everlasting quest for more eyeballs on social media posts, a new kind of “challenge” is making its way across the social media platform TikTok. It’s known as the “Benadryl Challenge”. (1) 

TikTok, a network that shares videos created by its users, has a huge base of customers in the younger set… teens and early 20s. Lately the Benadryl Challenge… the newest in viral publicity stunts… has begun receiving some negative attention in the media. Now it is being blamed for the death of one 15-year-old teen in Oklahoma. (2)

What Is The Benadryl Challenge?

This is similar to the bizarre Tide Pod Challenge of 2017, wherein participants ingested Tide laundry detergent, on film. (3) The Benadryl Challenge requires that a participant ingest an alarming amount of Benadryl tablets, on film, and share their experience in a TikTok video. 

With the Tide Pod challenge, there were at least 6 reported deaths and thousands of calls to local poison control centers. (3) The Benadryl Challenge seems as though it may be headed a similar direction, as the Oklahoma teen’s cause of death was deemed an overdose of Benadryl. It’s also not the first time hospitals have seen this lately.

How Does The Benadryl Challenge Work?

The idea is that the person taking the challenge ingests a high dose of Benadryl, enough to make them hallucinate, or “trip”. But a dose this high can actually cause disruptions in how the heart pumps blood, which can lead to seizures and permanent health problems later in life. Death is also a distinct possibility. (2)

What Is Benadryl, Exactly?

Benadryl is also known as diphenhydramine, and it is used as an antihistamine. It reduces the effects of an allergy attack, which is a huge spike of histamine in your body. It’s the histamine that makes you cough and sneeze, experience watery eyes and skin rashes too. The antihistamine in Benadryl is what helps calm those physical reactions. But it can also cause sleepiness and other side effects. For this reason, it’s recommended that people use extreme caution when driving or operating machinery on Benadryl, and never take more than the recommended dosage. People with certain preexisting health conditions may need to avoid the drug altogether and should definitely seek the advice of their doctor before using it. (4)

The family of the teen who died, say they are confident that she did not take her own life. They said she was a “happy and faith-driven teen,” who was “not one to experiment with drugs.” (2)

In August of 2020, Cook Children’s Medical Center in Texas issued a warning to parents about the Benadryl Challenge. This, after they treated three teens for Benadryl overdose earlier in the year. 

All of the teens survived, though one of them reportedly took 14 pills at one time.  

“We have seen kids who overdose in suicide attempts,” said the nurse who treated the teens at Cook Children’s. “But this was different. These kids weren’t trying to harm themselves. They watched a video and it told them exactly how many milligrams to take and to see how it made them feel.” (2)