TUCSON, Ariz. \u2014 A dangerous resurfacing internet trend could turn helpful over-the-counter medication harmful.<\/p>\n
Tucson Medical Center\u2019s Pediatric Emergency Department has recently seen a rise in Benadryl overdose cases while a social media trend surrounding the medication is returning to TikTok and Instagram feeds.<\/p>\n
The trend shows users taking an overdose of Benadryl or similar generic medications recreationally, usually to induce hallucinations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey take Benadryl to get high or to achieve a euphoric effect, and unfortunately, they can overdo that very easily and get very sick,\u201d said Dr. Ann Juodakis, a hospitalist at Tucson Medical Center\u2019s Pediatric Emergency Department.<\/p>\n
The active ingredient in Benadryl is diphenhydramine\u2014an antihistamine that treats allergy symptoms but often also causes drowsiness.<\/p>\n
However, too much of any medication can be incredibly dangerous, causing confusion, hallucinations, or a loss of consciousness, which could lead to larger internal issues and a night or two in a hospital bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cKids are watching these TikTok videos and are challenged to take an overdose of Benadryl\u201412 to 15 tablets, but we\u2019ve seen people take much more than that,\u201d said Juodakis.<\/p>\n
To protect from medication misuse, Juodakis recommends keeping all medication out of the reach of children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have a minor, all medications should really be distributed by a parent,\u201d she said. \u201cSo your children should not be accessing medication independently.\u201d<\/p>\n
To ensure helpful medications don\u2019t turn harmful, pay attention to the dose limits and recommendations often on the back or side of over-the-counter medications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TUCSON, Ariz. \u2014 A dangerous resurfacing internet trend could turn helpful over-the-counter medication harmful. Tucson Medical Center\u2019s Pediatric…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[41884,297308,282871,297309,97814,297310,41435,97,243],"class_list":["post-683311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-allergy-medication","tag-allergy-overdose","tag-antihistamine","tag-benadrill","tag-benadryl-challenge","tag-benadryl-overdose","tag-diphenhydramine","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683311","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=683311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}