Five years after the first reports of teenagers dying from trying TikTok’s viral “Benadryl challenge,” the videos encouraging teens to get high on Benadryl are still trending and threatening kids’ lives. A South Carolina mother told WMBF Monday that the challenge almost killed her 13-year-old daughter due to Benadryl overdose.
When her daughter began hallucinating last week, the South Carolina mother noticed pills under her pillow and asked how many she’d taken. She said two, but her mother didn’t believe her because there were pills on the bed. When she and her husband counted them, they realized many were missing. She rushed her daughter, whose heart rate was over 200, to the emergency room, where she was treated for Benadryl overdose.
When doctors asked the teen if this was a suicide attempt, she explained that a friend told her she could get high from Benadryl. That’s when her mother checked her phone and found the Benadryl challenge all over her feed.
Later, she learned that her daughter had secretly purchased the over-the-counter medication while they were at the pharmacy to buy batteries. Like so many other frustrated parents, this mother learned that the videos did not violate TikTok’s guidelines when she attempted to report them.
The first public report of a teen dying from TikTok’s Benadryl challenge was in 2020, when a 15-year-old girl died in Oklahoma. Multiple reports of teens overdosing on the allergy medication were also reported by a hospital in Texas.
In September 2020, the FDA issued a warning about Tiktok’s Benadryl challenge. At the time, FDA officials said, “We contacted TikTok and strongly urged them to remove the videos from their platform and to be vigilant to remove additional videos that may be posted.”
When people started cooking chicken in NyQuil, due to another social media trend in 2022, the FDA put out a short video on YouTube encouraging parents to be aware of the dangers. The makers of Benadryl also have a website urging parents to avoid misuse of the product and warning of the social media trend.
Then, in 2023, a 13-year-old boy in Ohio died from trying the Benadryl challenge. In his case, he took 12 to 14 pills, after which he had seizures and died a week later, despite being cared for in the ICU. After that death, TikTok issued a statement emphasizing that its 40,000 safety personnel worked hard to remove content promoting dangerous behavior. “We have never seen this type of content trend on our platform and have blocked searches for years to help discourage copycat behavior,” the statement continued.
TikTok has been contacted for comment about this latest incident as has not yet responded.
After five years of the harmful TikTok Benadryl challenge, these videos are still out there and our kids are seeing them. The best tools parents have to protect their kids are these:
The FDA recommends that parents, caregivers, and consumers lock up medications to prevent accidental poisoning by children and misuse by teens.
Parents can learn more about parental controls and how to supervise their kids’ phone use while maintaining a trusting relationship.
With rumblings that an American may buy the U.S. arm of TikTok, parents can notify their elected officials that they want better protections for kids on the app.
The South Carolina mother whose daughter survived the recent Benadryl overdose said that the experience scared the teen, who couldn’t remember what happened the next day. She had already been checking on her daughter’s phone, but now she will be on high alert and warns other parents to watch out for these dangers, saying she doesn’t want any other parent to go through what they did.
Until platforms like TikTok take stronger action, parents remain the last line of defense against a challenge that continues to put kids at risk of Benadryl overdose.
