It also inhibits the effects of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is involved in regulating blood vessel dilation, muscle contractions, and your heart rate. Many of these adverse effects are due to the fact that diphenhydramine is not just an antihistamine, Dr. In rare cases, this change in heart rate can be lethal. Banner, who recently coauthored a large study looking at the potential for diphenhydramine to cause side effects in children, the most common of which were increased heart rate and hallucinations. Specifically, it can alter your heart rate by interfering with the refractory period between beats, says Dr. Stolbach says, noting that it would take upwards of a dozen pills to see these effects in an adult.Īt these doses, diphenhydramine can also affect the heart, William Banner, M.D., M.P.H., past president of the American Association of Poison Control Centers board of directors and medical director of the Oklahoma Center for Poison & Drug Information, tells SELF. Many people who take the drug experience sleepiness and it can even leave you with a groggy feeling the next morning.īut, paradoxically, it can cause agitation, confusion, increased body temperature, hallucinations, and even seizures at higher doses, Dr. “In low and therapeutic doses, diphenhydramine is a sedative,” Andrew Stolbach, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of emergency medicine and medical toxicologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, tells SELF. And the dosage that can cause hallucinations is high enough to cause other serious issues, including potentially lethal effects on the heart. But, as SELF explained previously, it can come with side effects, which become more serious as the dose increases. TikTok has since taken many of the videos down.ĭiphenhydramine is an antihistamine drug that’s commonly used to treat allergy symptoms and as a sleep aid.
Now the challenge has been linked to the death of a 15-year-old girl in Oklahoma, according to local news reports, however an official cause of death has not been released. FDA recommends you lock up medicines to prevent accidental poisonings by children and misuse by teens, especially when they are home more often due to the COVID-19 pandemic and may be more likely to experiment.Back in May, Cook Children’s hospital in Texas warned that they treated three teenagers within a week who had all come in with symptoms of a diphenhydramine (brand name Benadryl) overdose after trying the challenge. We are aware of news reports of teenagers ending up in emergency rooms or dying after participating in the “Benadryl Challenge” encouraged in videos posted on the social media application TikTok.įurther, the FDA advised parents to store the diphenhydramine out of reach of children, Consumers, parents, and caregivers should store diphenhydramine and all other OTC and prescription medicines up and away and out of children’s reach and sight. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that taking higher than recommended doses of the common over-the-counter (OTC) allergy medicine diphenhydramine (Benadryl) can lead to serious heart problems, seizures, coma, or even death. The notice, posted on 24th September, read as following: The U.S. Further, we also saw an elaborate FDA warning posted on the government website.
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