TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – A Toledo mother is speaking out after her 14-year-old daughter took part in a dangerous social media challenge called the \u201cBenadryl Challenge,\u201d which has teens taking excessive amounts of allergy tablets to hallucinate.<\/p>\n
Kristi Pasquarelli said she had never heard of the trend until this past weekend, when her daughter took 17 tablets of Benadryl as part of the challenge.<\/p>\n
Pasquarelli said she was driving home around 3 a.m. Saturday, when she saw a girl running in the middle of the street in her neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome to find out it was my kid who was running and hallucinating,\u201d Pasquarelli said. <\/p>\n
Her daughter was supposed to be at a friend\u2019s house for a sleepover.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we got home, she was talking to people that\u2019s not there, so I\u2019m like, \u2018Are you okay? What did you do?\u2019\u201d Pasquarelli said.<\/p>\n
Pasquarelli said she immediately took her daughter to the emergency room.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a mom, I was hurt, I was hurt and worried,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her daughter told hospital staff she took 17 tablets of Benadryl at once. The typical dose for someone that age is one to two tablets every four to six hours. The directions also say not to take more than six tablets in 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Dr. Brian Kaminski with ProMedica said taking too much of anything can cause harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s also a common misconception that over-the-counter medications aren\u2019t dangerous and there are plenty of OTC medications, including Tylenol, that if you take it in excessive doses, can be extremely dangerous and even life-threatening, and Benadryl is one of those,\u201d Dr. Kaminski said.<\/p>\n
According to the FDA<\/a>, \u201cWe are aware of news reports of teenagers ending up in emergency rooms or dying after participating in the \u2018Benadryl Challenge\u2019 encouraged in videos posted on the social media application TikTok.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI never heard of it,\u201d Pasquarelli said.<\/p>\n Her daughter is doing better now, but Pasquarelli wants other parents to learn from this.<\/p>\n \u201cI know how I felt when my child and I just don\u2019t want other parents to go through it or parents who don\u2019t know about this challenge to be aware and to be watching,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kaminski said prevention starts with a conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that we know that it\u2019s out there, I would suggest talking to your kids, bringing it up and talking about the risks and the dangers of doing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Pasquarelli said she is already looking into that.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t be on TikTok that much, but maybe I need to start being on there more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n While Benadryl is an over-the-counter medication, some retailers have begun requiring identification to purchase the drug. Pasquarelli said parents should be on the lookout for purchases of the medication.<\/p>\n Latest Local News<\/a> | First Alert Weather<\/a> | Crime<\/a> | National<\/a> | 13abc Originals<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WTVG. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – A Toledo mother is speaking out after her 14-year-old daughter took part in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[102,6591,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-520609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}