{"id":181983,"date":"2025-09-26T01:36:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/181983\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T01:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:36:18","slug":"dangerous-benadryl-challenge-returns-to-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/181983\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous \u201cBenadryl Challenge\u201d returns to social media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">HANNIBAL (WGEM) \u2014 Store shelves, medicine cabinets, nightstands \u2014 these are a few of the places Benadryl and other antihistamines can be found. Antihistamines are considered harmless by many \u2014 but a newly resurfaced social media trend says otherwise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Videos encouraging students to ingest large amounts of Benadryl to get high are circulating through social media feeds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ky3.com\/2025\/09\/15\/really-scary-teen-nearly-dies-after-benadryl-social-media-challenge\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ky3.com\/2025\/09\/15\/really-scary-teen-nearly-dies-after-benadryl-social-media-challenge\/\">A student in South Carolina<\/a> was rushed to her local hospital with a heart rate of 200 beats per minute after taking part in the challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">This is not the first time the viral challenge has made troubling headlines. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/04\/18\/us\/benadryl-tiktok-challenge-teen-death-wellness\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/04\/18\/us\/benadryl-tiktok-challenge-teen-death-wellness\">An Ohio teen passed away<\/a> in April 2023 \u2014 he reportedly overdosed on Benadryl while hanging out with his friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">One local pharmacist said taking any medication in excess is dangerous.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">\u201cThe general feeling that medications, because they\u2019re over-the-counter, are safe, and that you can\u2019t be harmed from them, it\u2019s just not true,\u201c said Greg Gilmore, owner and pharmacist at Grand Pharmacy in Hannibal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Gilmore explained antihistamines slow bodily functions like breathing, which can lead to cardiac issues or even a coma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Parents and guardians should always be on the lookout for overdose symptoms like drowsiness, slurred or confused speech, hallucinations and seizures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">TikTok and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benadryl.com\/safety\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.benadryl.com\/safety\">Benadryl<\/a> both previously released statements condemning the challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Gilmore advises anyone who suspects their child may be overdosing to contact Poison Control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WGEM. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HANNIBAL (WGEM) \u2014 Store shelves, medicine cabinets, nightstands \u2014 these are a few of the places Benadryl and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[41885,97814,10111,97,45557,243,5970,1153],"class_list":{"0":"post-181983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-benadryl","9":"tag-benadryl-challenge","10":"tag-dangerous","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-risks","13":"tag-medication","14":"tag-medications","15":"tag-tiktok"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}