GREENFIELD, Ohio — A Southwest Ohio family is grieving the death of a 13-year-old boy who overdosed on over-the-counter allergy medication.
Jacob Stevens' family made the difficult decision to say goodbye after the Greenfield teen spent nearly a week on a ventilator. WSYX in Columbus said Stevens was attempting what's been dubbed the "Benadryl Challenge" on TikTok.
The trend tasks participants with taking between 12 and 14 tablets of the antihistamine, six times the recommended dose, to induce hallucinations.
Stevens' family told WSYX that the teen was at home with his friends earlier this month when he overdosed. His friends were filming him down the tablets when his body began seizing.
"No brain scan. There was nothing there. He said we could keep him on the vent — we could, you know, he could lay there like that but he will never open his eyes, he will never breathe on his own, do anything like that," Stevens' grandmother Dianna said.
Stevens' father described the day he pulled his son off the ventilator as "the worst day of his life," according to WSYX.
The trend surfaced on TikTok in 2020, first making headlines when a 15-year-old Oklahoma girl fatally overdosed while attempting it. The FDA has since addressed the trend.
"Certainly that's alarming and if I were a parent I would be very worried about that," Dr. Shan Yin said.
Yin is the medical director of the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine.
He said just because many medications are available over the counter, it doesn't mean they can't be deadly.
"There's a common toxicology saying, which is 'the dose is what makes it the poison,' which essentially means that almost anything can be a poison if you take enough," Yin said.
In addition to death, other severe symptoms of diphenhydramine overdose include seizures, abnormal heart rhythms, delirium, hallucinations, anticholinergic syndrome, urinary retention and preventing a person from sweating, Yin said.
"It's hard to know how prevalent it is, how many teens are looking at it, how many teens do this, how many teens don't," he said. "So all we know is there has been an increase in these kind of ingestions, that we have been seeing more severe outcomes and certainly that is worrisome."
Benadryl-maker Johnson & Johnson also has a disclaimer on its website raising alarm over potential overdoses tied to the social media challenge.
WCPO reached out to TikTok but was unable to receive comment, however as of Tuesday, a search for "Benadryl Challenge" no longer shows any results on the platform.
The page instead shows a message telling users to "Be informed and aware." It goes on to read "Some substances can be dangerous when used or misused. Learn more about how drugs, alcohol and tobacco can affect our mind, body and behavior."
Stevens' family is warning other parents to monitor their children's online activity to avoid anyone else attempting the challenge. His father is aso urging lawmakers about potential age restrictions on buying medicine like Benadryl and using social media platforms like TikTok.
"Keep an eye on what your kids doing with that phone, talk to 'em about, you know, the situation," Stevens' father Justin said. "I want everybody to know about my son's situation."
The teen's family has created a GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses.
