DOSE:	1.2 g	oral	Diphenhydramine	(pill / tablet)
		IV	Pharms - Lorazepam

BODY WEIGHT:

119 lb

Well, basically I was in a very confused/distraught state of mind and couldn't decide if I wanted to die or not. I thought I did, but at the same time thought I didn't. So I had 2 boxes of Simply Sleep pills (25mg diphenhydramine) and I took all 48 pills and put them in a cup and just sat and looked at them for a while.

I thought I wanted to take them, and then I thought I didn't want to. And then I started taking them all. But after I did it I decided I didn't want to die, so I called 911 to come rescue me. Yes I know, bear with me.

Anyhow there were about 6 people suddenly swarming around in my house, police officers and paramedics. It took them 15 minutes or so to decide what to do even though I told them right up front what I had taken and how much.

As I got into the ambulance I started to feel really drowsy and a little cold. They had me start drinking a huge thing of activated charcoal, I think it said 50g on it, but at that point I was starting to trip so I could be wrong. Since I was cooperative about drinking the charcoal they didn't pump my stomach at the hospital. The ambulance ride took about another 15 minutes. The charcoal tasted heinous and made me gag, but I couldn't vomit even when I tried to a couple times, nothing would come up.

We got the hospital and they wheeled me in on a stretcher. At this point I'm starting to feel dizzy and tingly all over, and my memory starts to become spotty. I remember a doctor introducing himself to me (don't remember the name) and I say 'hi' back in this whispery voice and then I remembered him looking at me with a stricken expression and I couldn't remember why. Several days later the memory finally came back to me that he was asking me what kind of insurance I have (I have none, har har).

Then I was in the ER and I started to feel really restless and was tossing around on the bed while the nurses were looking up what to do for a Benadryl overdose. I could hear someone making whimpering noises and I thought 'who is doing that?' but then I realized it was me. I felt sort of detached from my body. They hooked me up to a saline IV and a thing that monitored my oxygen level and other stuff. There was some charcoal still left in that container so they put it in a cup and warmed it up and had me drink it like that.

As they were warming the charcoal up I looked around and started to notice visual effects. You know how when you unfocus your eyes and squint it makes these sort of blurry lines all over everything? It was kind of like that, like things were shifting and moving and I couldn't quite focus my eyes right. They gave me the cup with the charcoal, and when I put it up to my mouth to drink I drooled a bunch of it all over myself, couldn't keep my mouth closed all the way.

They wiped all the charcoal off me, took my street clothes off and gave me a hospital gown to wear. I had to pee at that point and had my first experience peeing in a bedpan (couldn't move out of the bed with all the wires and stuff coming off me). That feels very weird, let me tell you. After that I kept having to pee like every 15 minutes or so.

I couldn't think straight anymore. If they asked me a short question I could answer it. 'Can you hear me?' 'yes' 'know where you are?' 'I'm in the hospital' but then they started to ask me longer questions, something about family (maybe they wanted to contact somebody) but as the sentences became longer than 3 or 4 words I couldn't concentrate at all and would immediately forget what they had just said. And I remember trying to answer a long question that I couldn't really remember and my words just went all over the place and suddenly I was like 'huh what am I saying.'

My heart was beating like crazy, they brought in an EKG and stuck a bunch of stickers all over my chest and hooked me up to that. I opened my mouth to breathe and it felt super dry so I asked them for some water. And they gave me some but said don't drink too much, and I was like 'bleh why' and they're like 'just don't.'

Now my memory starts to get really weird, I can only remember little bits and pieces of things. I remember feeling really weak. They had set the little bottle of water I was drinking from on a table a couple feet from the bed and I had leaned over and was stretching my arm out for it, but I felt so weak I couldn't get my arm all the way to the bottle. Someone finally saw me and took pity and handed me the water. I remember the nurse holding my hand and telling me it's all right, we won't let you die, but I didn't care really if I died, and I remember feeling this calm feeling inside and laughing a little. But at the same time my body felt very restless and twitchy and I kept shuddering, not a convulsion, but just kind of my whole body would jerk for a second.

I started having short dreams, but then I would wake up and be like wow that was weird, thought I was at home for a second. And they'd ask me again 'do you know where you are?' I knew I was at the hospital still. I think I remember having an X-ray on my stomach, but there was a dreamlike quality to the memory so I'm not sure if it happened really or not. I got a radiology bill later though, so maybe it was real. I remember just staring at the palm of my hand for a loooooooong time and then finally realizing what I was doing. I also remember thinking bugs were crawling on me, but when I went to brush them off my arms I could see there was nothing there.

Another doctor came in, a lady doctor this time, and she told me she was giving me a shot of Ativan to prevent seizures. And I was like ok sounds good *holds up arm*. After she gave me the shot it felt like my head cleared up a bit and I could think again, but then my memory really starts to fade after that and I just remember being wheeled into the ICU. There were some long plastic things hanging from the ceiling and I said 'I think I'm hallucinating. I can see Q-tips dangling from the ceiling' and the nurse said 'oh yeah we hang things from those' and I was like 'oh they're really there.'

After that I think I was asleep off and on, or else I just don't remember what happened. I remember the nurse coming in and bringing me some ice chips for my dry mouth, and she was looking at me like I had 2 heads or something, so I'm not sure what crazy things I may have been saying. The blood pressure thing kept squeezing my arm like crazy so I pulled it off, but then the monitor thing went crazy thinking I had zero blood pressure and BEEPED and the nurse ran back in and slapped it back on my arm.

Then I remember the psych lady coming in and asking me if I was trying to hurt myself with all that Bendaryl (several people asked me that in the course of the night) and I didn't really see any point in lying since I took 2 full boxes of sleeping pills.

But anyway at that point I felt well enough to stand up again and put my clothes back on. My head was pretty clear, I could see a clock and it was about 6 hours or so since I took all the pills. My memory was still off and on though, I remember talking in the car with psych lady on the way to the mental hospital but I don't remember getting into the car or getting out of it.

Anyway that's my experience with a big overdose of Benadryl. I did not see any hallucinations (that I'm aware of) other than the weird visual effects. If I did have any hallucinations they were either very realistic ones involving hospital workers, or I've just totally forgotten them. I had a couple times where I was 'dreaming while awake' but I didn't move from my hospital bed or anything. I also probably didn't absorb the entire 1200mg since they got to me so fast and I drank all that charcoal.

The next day I was very shaky, my hands especially seemed to shake and I just slept most of the day. I also kept feeling like my heart was beating fast, but I'm not sure if it was the Benadryl or just feeling freaky about almost killing myself. I also got a huge bruise on my arm from where that darn blood pressure thing was squeezing me. And when the people at the mental hospital took my blood pressure on the other arm it made a big bruise there too. Kinda weird, not sure if the easy bruising thing was related to the Benadryl or not. All healed up now though, and as far as I can tell there were no lasting effects from this.

One of the paramedics assured me that 1200mg is enough to kill someone my size. Overall I would not describe the experience as being a really fun trip, there's a lot of twitchiness, restlessness, sensations of bugs crawling on ME and such. I did have a feeling of calmness and peace, not sure if it was the drug or if I was just sleepy and happy to be saved from death.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 63170
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 12, 2007	Views: 50,743
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Diphenhydramine (109), Police / Customs (60) : Hangover / Days After (46), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Hospital (36)