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In the United States, in the State of Ohio, a 13-year-old teenager, Jacob Stevens, died following a challenge propagated by the famous application TikTok: the “Benadryl Challenge” which consists of taking a large quantity of an anti-allergic drug.
This is one more drama linked to the Tiktok application, known to promote challenges that are sometimes dangerous to health. A 13-year-old boy, Jacob Stevens died after trying to complete the “Benadryl Challenge”.
A challenge of taking a high dose of medication
This challenge, the “Benadryl Challenge” consists of taking a high dose of antihistamines, between 12 and 14 tablets in total, with the aim of inducing hallucinations. This is six times the recommended dose and therefore causes serious complications.
Filmed by his friends while taking these tablets, the young man suffered from convulsions.
A challenge that led to a fatal overdose
Quickly taken care of by the emergency services, the young man did not survive this drug overdose. “They said we could keep him alive, he could lie down but he would never open his eyes, breathe, smile, walk or talk.“said the father of the victim.
Unfortunately, it was the worst that happened afterwards: six days after this ingestion, the teenager’s brain was no longer responding.
Two battles to fight for the parents of Jacob
The bereaved family of the young man now wants to commit to prevention with parents, so that they monitor more closely what their children are doing on social networks. The boy’s father even pleads for the imposition of an age limit, to create an account.
But he also wants the sale of Benadryl to be better regulated, with a minimum legal age required to have the right to obtain it.
The FDA, the American health authority, for its part shared a reminder concerning the molecule: “Taking higher than recommended doses of the over-the-counter allergy medication diphenhydramine (Benadryl) can lead to serious heart problems, seizures, coma, or even death.”