Is it possible to become dependent on benadryl (Allergy Liqui-Gels, 25mg)?
I have been taking (only occasionally) one at night, to ease into sleep, per my MD’s orders.
Psychological dependence is possible, but not real common without a history of chemical dependency issues.
Physical dependence is very very unlikely even on high doses, but not impossible.
It’s not a real good sleep med except for occasional use.
For quite a while I took one at night (every night) for allergy issues. Those allergy issues went away and I felt like I was dependent on it to fall asleep. I gave it up and still struggle with getting to sleep (after trying and giving up other medications), so I suspect that it was not so much dependence as it just helped me to get to sleep. If it was a quality sleep I would still be taking it.
The thought has crossed my mind, too. I take a daily allergy pill - most days. But it’s only a 10mg pill, so really, how addictive could it be, and i generally don’t have an “addictive personality” in the first place.
The same ingredient is in Z-Quill, which is what Nyquill just released, and the commercials say it’s non-addictive.
Don’t take more than 3 during the night (unless pill 1 has worn off - they last 4 hours). Benadryl makes you itch all over in doses that large which defeats the purpose of trying to fall asleep. And I’ve read that if you take 8 or so, you’ll get a high and/or trip from it but otherwise suffer no ill effects. I wouldn’t recommend it though.
As someone who has been using diphenhydramine for nearly 50 years now…
No, it’s not addictive in the usual sense meant. However, for some types of allergy testing they will ask you to refrain from all anti-histamines for some time period (two weeks if I recall) so I assume there is some lingering effect for a few days after you take it. Also, while initially it does help me sleep, and sudden discontinuation after a prolonged period of regular use means I might have some trouble falling asleep for a few days, these effects are pretty trivial compared to what is usually meant by addiction and/or withdrawal. It certainly doesn’t seem to have any psychological component, and at least in my case does not cause any sort of craving for the drug.
So… I say no. YMMV. Or what Qadgop said.
Some inquisitive or foolish or impoverished, depending upon your POV people have tried to take diphenydamine recreationally as in high doses it’s a deleriant. A deleriant is what some non drug takers think hallucinogens are like and wonder why on EARTH anyone would take them.
For humerous anecdotes you may enjoy the Erowid diphenhydramine experience vault @ http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Diphenhydramine.shtml. There are people there who have taken over a gram of the stuff!
Personally, if one is to take a sedating antihistamine, I find 50mg of promethazine will send me to sleep far better than diphenhydramine but only if taken every two weeks at most - and it also gives a hangover like effect. 100ml of neat whisky 20 minutes before going to sleep should also do the job, assuming one is sober and has no objection to occasionally using alcohol for medicinal reasons.
I took the first Benadryl of my life 11/21/12 while visiting my sister and brother in law.
A few hours after arriving I began to suffer a truly torrential episode of nasal discharge.
Never had anything like it in my life. We thought it might have been allergic reaction to
a varnish my brother in law was putting on some walls, but I relapsed a few days later
when I returned home, so now I think I had a bug whose only symptom was the awful discharge.
Whatever the cause I needed help, and my sister (an RN) introduced me to Benadryl.
One dose helped but was not enough, so my sister gave me another dose which cleared
the discharge problem up immediately, completely and all night. Six doses over the next
eight days kept things under control.
In the course of this treatrment I got wise to Benadryl’s sleep-promoting qualities. I have
often had trouble getting to sleep, and sometimes have had trouble waking up and being
unable to get back to sleep. A few years ago I finally asked the Doctor for a prescription
sleeping pill, and have been taking about 15-20 doses of Zolpidem per year, using them
only when I got to the point of staying awake upast something like 3am.
Benadryl works for me just as well as Zolpidem, and is now my go-to 1st choice. I have taken
23 doses since last Dec. 1 (~1 every 3 days), purposely avoiding using it more than 3 days
in a row, or more than once a day. I have not had any issues with anything which might
be considered habit formation or addiction. So far, then, Benadryl gets an A+ testimonial
from me, and I don’t hand out many of those.
I was about to correct you and say it’s actually doxylamine succinate in NyQuil, but it appears you are right. Anyone know why they use a different antihistamine in ZzzQuil than they do in their other products? Is doxylamine succinate not approved for insomnia for some reason?
Diphenhydramine makes me feel …antsy is I guess the best word(not alert) kinda on edge and like my skin is prickly or something and I need to move, very poor sleep aid personally.
I started out the same way with my sleeping issues. As time pasted I had to up my dosage. At my peak I took 350mgs (7 max strength pills 14 regular) lots of people get high off that much not me my tolerance was high. At about 150mgs it made me get super agitated. Finally got prescribed ambian after getting used to that I used alcohol to knock me out. In all its beem a bumpy road. My issue isn’t staying asleep its falling asleep. Try to not to depend on it or you can take the same road
Because Benadryl is the non-pain relief ingredient in most if not all “PM” versions of OTC pain meds? It has a solid track record of being effective for sleep already (or at least being believed to be by users, so pretty much the same thing).
I took half a Benadryl every night for years and years to help me sleep and at one point I guess I didn’t need it anymore and I stopped ( I don’t even remember exactly when or why ) and I can assure you there is absolutely nothing addictive about it.
And it was consistently effective for me at that low dose which I understand is unusual…but I always respond well to very low ( and sometimes techically subclinical)doses of medications.
This puzzled me as well. Nyquil has always put me to sleep reliably, so I sought out doxylamine succinate (there is one sleep aid, Unisom, that uses it). For me, while it put me to sleep, it also made me groggy in the morning. I suspect the effect is less noticeable when you take NyQuil because hey, you’re sick.
Some years ago I started cutting 25 mg benadryls in half and found that most of the time that was all I needed to quell mild allergy symptoms at bedtime. I suspect a LOT of people, particularly those who are not large adults, would do just fine on 12.5 mg dose it’s just that 25 mg got to be standard at one point and now that’s what’s handed out regardless if you’re 80 pounds and 4 foot 10 or 6 foot 5 and 300 pounds.
It’s not a “sub-clinical” dose, it’s the children’s dose. And, like I said, I suspect it would also be effective for many smaller adults. Me, I prefer to use as little medication as possible to achieve the desired results. Just seems like a good principal in general.
The main thing is that you adapt to it rather quickly, needing more and more to get to sleep. But as Qadgop says it’s not dependence inducing, I’m not sure what to call that. It isn’t addicting by any measure. It just loses effectiveness.
That is the active ingredient in Unisome and is very sedating with a long half-life ie… next day hangover!
I get that too if I take more than 50 mg. Very strange sensation—almost as if your muscles are crawling. Impossible to resist the urge to move your legs. I believe that’s caused by its anticholinergic properties.
No.
One word of caution…There’s a healthy body of research that suggests Benadryl taken right before bedtime can hinder new memory formation.
But that never happened with me, although I realize my experience is unusual in that regard. I probably took half a pill every night for 5-10 years and it consistently worked.