how much diphenhydramine is an overdose?

I work for the National Poisons Information service in the UK. The advice we have is following:

Children or adults who have accidentally ingested less than 5 mg/kg
and have no symptoms do not need referral to hospital.

Children or adults who have recently ingested 5 mg/kg or more and those who have taken deliberate overdoses should be referred.

For an average 70kg adult, then, 350 mg would be enough to be referred to A&E. We take "overdose" to mean any more than a therapeutic amount. We use the BNF, and if the amount taken is more than the recommended amount, then it is an OD.

I took 700mg plus 25 lisinopril and lived thru it...

benadryl is a drug and a strong one at that i am an extreemly experienced benadryl user i to have tooken exessive amounts of benadryl at one time just to "trip" yes you do get hallucinations but i have vary rarely got hollucinations maybe once or twice but i have started taking benadryl two years ago and i have done it every night since and i love it i can say i am an addict and i have cut down but today my friend had stupidly tooken a whole bottle of benadryl ( about 100 pills) and he got shipped to the hospital and i told him that he would take way too much with benadryl it is a very hard drug acctually most acid users are affraid of it cuz the halucinations arnt really halucinations benadryl is a dileriant and it makes you delirious but with all drugs you have to find your own dose and to this day my hands shake and i see shadows moving all arround me and i used to be curious in this stuff but benadryl is getting quit old

Im usualy 135-140 lbs. it changes in like hours but if i took 15 of 50 mg capsuls, would i overdose? Once i took 2 to just forget everything at the time. and i couldnt stop talking and if the car turned slightly i would just go with the movment and sway back and forth. And frequently slur. so would 15, 50 mg capsules do it?

Guest wrote:

Quote: I just got out of the hospital last week for what I'm told was an accidental Benadryl overdose. There is practically 0 chance that a 220 lb male overdosed on 75mg of benadryl, especially having been taking it routinely. personally I have taken doses of up to 300mg as a sleep aid and have both read of and witnessed doses of upwards of 1500mg. Of course, 1500mg is not by any means recommended and probably potentially fatal, but typically when someone has an emergency trip to a hospital due to diphenhydramine, it's from their incoherent speech that makes them appear in danger. In reality, it is a fairly powerful psychadelic that creates profoundly realistic hallucinations. Understandably, many people are worried when they see a friend or child speaking incoherently to a person who isn't there and call for help. Doses of up to 100mg should be perfectly safe for all people, and I suspect (my non-doctor non-pharmacist's opinion) that it would take 300-500mg or more before you should feel in danger. Of course, everyone's personal health situation is different and any illnesses you may have can drastically change your response to all drugs. Particular care should be taken if mixing diphenhydramine with other drugs, especally painkillers such as opiates, alcohol, or benzodiazapines (valium and other sedatives) Conclusion: A typical healthy person probably has nothing to worry about from less than 1mg per pound of body weight. For reference, the LD50 (dose at which 50% of animal test subjects died) for lab rats is 500mg per 1kg of body weight. If a similar relationship is true for humans, a 60Kg person would require 30,000mg to die from this. I wouldn't be concerned with less than 300mg unless you have health problems or are mixing with other sedatives or alcohol. best wishes

word, thats the first post i seen that describes diphenhydramine truthfully

I've taken over 2,500mg of Diphenhydramine in one dose before (I weighed 105 lbs at the time). A friend of mine took me to the hospital, after they found me in a delirious state. I actually never lost consciousness, and didn't even have to have my stomach pumped (they made me drink this charcoal shake to absorb the medication). The most that happened was that my short term memory completely fried out, and I couldn't even manage having a conversation because I couldn't remember what was just said to me. After they moved me out of the ER, into a room where I could sleep, I crashed and slept for close to 24 hours... so I'm not sure how long the delirium actually lasted. I haven't experienced any long term side-effects from this.

Most people are going to be just fine going (a little) over 100mg. You're body would have to be very sensitive to OD from that small of an amount. You'll know if you've taken too much if you start to get a noticeable "high". It won't be the normal relaxing/"weighty" feeling most sleep aids give you, it will be a high more similar to one you get from a psychotropic (delirium, "spinning", hallucination). You should be able to feel this coming on, so you'll be able to call a poison control center if you feel you need to. The main exception to this would be if you are mixing the diphenhydramine with another substance, in which case the results can be more unpredictable. So don't attempt to make you're own personal medication "cocktail".

Diphenhydramine is not a good way to get high, or commit suicide. The "high" you get from this is extremely unpleasant, more of something you would pay to not experience (headaches, nausea, confusion, irritability). And, despite what you may believe about attempting suicide there are almost no "easy" ways. Most pills are only going to leave you vomiting, delirious, and possibly experiencing seizures... and the end result is going to be that you are in an extreme amount of pain before you die. Again, you're not going to get lulled to sleep, you're just going to be delirious and in pain. So, rethink what you're doing before you attempt either.

yes, i have tried to trip off of it, or trip on, whatever... It's stupid, its not designed for that. Some phenethylamines and tryptamines are definitely drugs that are better for recreational use, not some OTC crap that's poorly ineffective to the majority of us with sleep disorders. Other than that, expanding your mind with hallucinogens is only safe if you play it safe... end of story.

Well, I'm 14, but Benadryl is a dangerous substance whatever you do. I don't sleep very well, so I snorted about 250mg of it at one point, and did not fall asleep. I was seeing things and totally tripping on diphenhydramines. I found that it is not wise to ingest too much of the substance in any form, and it surely burns to snort. I would go with 50 to 100mg at most. :]

I take 6 - 8 Sleep Aid Liquid Gels every night & all thats really hapen to me is I fall asleep like 3hrs later but you do get a buz........other then that nothing has happened

I had taken 28 25mg pills before. I ended up having 911 called on me and ended up in the ER and soon after ICU for 3 days. It increased my heart rate to a high of 170...even after being injected with multiple pumps of klonopin (i think it was that or some other anti anxiety). i was awake with a high heart rate for 24 hours before they finally had to give me something more intense to knock me out. i was hallucinating, shaking, had no control of my bladder, was dizzy, and everytime i blinked i panicked screaming because i forgot where i was. it was a terrible experience that i remember very little of.