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Expert warns parents about dangerous ‘Benadryl Challenge’ after teen dies | What to know
Parents are being warned after an Oklahoma girl was sent to a hospital and later died after participating in the viral “Benadryl Challenge”
A dangerous social media trend encourages children and teenagers to take dangerous amounts of Benadryl to hallucinate.
Richard Presson’s 15-year-old daughter took part in the “Benadryl Challenge,” a social media trend that encourages people to take large doses of Benadryl to get high. The active chemical in the product is diphenhydramine.
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Presson recently shared with sister station KOCO the story of what happened to his daughter, who he said “lost all of her brain functions” and was initially in the hospital on a ventilator, but later died. He had a message for parents, encouraging them to look out for their children.
“Anybody else that has children, I just highly advise them to watch out, you know, for new trending challenges and, you know, look for signs of it. Look them up,” Presson said.
Video below: Oklahoma teen dies after attempting viral ‘Benadryl Challenge’
An expert said there are psychological factors to keep in mind with this.
“For some, it definitely is peer pressure, and then there’s another cohort where it is mental health related, where it can be depression, anxiety, or ADHD-related where it’s maybe a little more sensation-seeking,” said Dr. Chandler Hicks, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at OU Health.
Hicks said the challenge creates a bad situation for teenagers and children because their brains aren’t fully developed.
“The Benadryl Challenge, it’s to get high — but you don’t really think about that dose that you’re taking has consequences. It can cause heart arrhythmia. It can cause a coma. It can cause death,” Hicks said.
Social media only complicates the problem.
“It’s a huge driver of things. I not only see it in an outpatient setting, but I work in emergency rooms and see it constantly, where it’s an issue with mental health,” Hicks said. “Rates of suicide are a lot higher over the last 10 years or so, and that correlates a lot with the drive towards TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, where you see a lot of impressionistic teenagers.”
For parents, it should be a wake-up call to talk to their children not just about the dangerous Benadryl Challenge but about peer pressure, too.
“They should have open discussions about some of the pressures that can come up online and monitor that,” Hicks said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics said this trend actually started in 2020, and it has since spread to multiple social media platforms.
