Bad Mood Reaction to Benadryl / Diphenhydramine

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I had been taking Benadryl for 3 consecutive nights to help with insomnia / sleep disturbance. After the second day, I found I was having racing, incessant, emotional thoughts. Since I was still unaware of the association I mistakenly took it once more and found myself in a depressing, ruminating phase with escapist sexual hyperactivity (depression). This medicine seems to have opened a depressive pathway in my brain, letting out thoughts and feelings I normally have in smaller, reasonable, and controllable amounts. Does anyone else have this kind of experience with Benadryl? I have stopped taking it, and am feeling better, but I am curious to follow up with anyone here who has Asperger's to see if it has also been an issue for them.

It doesn't do that to me, it makes me sleepy for a few nights then doesn't work at all. My body builds a tolerance to it quickly. It, along with doxylamine and also promethazine (phenergan) is a delierant antihistamine. It can have paradoxical reactions.

Meds work differently on everyone. I wouldn't think AS would cause that sort of thing with any particular med, it's simply how each person responds. My husband, who is an NT, gets very hyper on benadryl or any of those meds.

An example is hydrocodone. Some people get very sleepy from hydrocodone while others become very hyper and euphoric. Valium depresses some, while others feel calm and happy.

AS itself wouldn't be able to cause any across the board reaction to a medication IMO.

You might want to try Doxylamine and see if that's any different for you. It's OTC as well, but it's the same class of drug. It's a 50/50 shot on that. The same way some SSRI's don't work for some or cause suicidal feelings in some while other SSRI's work great.

If none of the OTC meds work for you, try melatonin. It's natural and works somewhat for me.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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I had a similar reaction to taking Benadryl; the racing thoughts and insomnia. (not sure what escapist sexual hyperactivity is...?) It does say on the label 'may cause excitability, especially in children.' I suspect we're just sensitive to diphenhydramine. I now avoid antihistamines containing this. If you're having trouble sleeping, I find Gravol helps me.

My daughter (who is NT) took it one night and was awake all night having hallucinations that there were bees chasing her. I don't like that stuff!

I've had weird reactions to benydryl at the higher than recommended dose, yes I am an idiot and wanted to see if you really could trip on benydryl its not very pleasent though. But 1 to 2 of them will help with allergies, a runny nose or sleep but I prefer to only use it as a last resort.

I had a similar reaction to pseudoephedrine (which I had been prescribed to take before going on a flight, to prevent my ear pain). I never slept a wink for 3 nights and thought I was going mad.

my sleep trick is 1/2 tsp powdered ginger in 1 cup warm sweetened milk. (don't use ginger if you're on a blood thinner, as bleeding could ensue.)

Ppl with autism often have lower than normal meletonin levels which causes sluggishness in the daytime and insomia or hyperactivity at night. Melitonin regulates sleep/awake cycles.
Many ppl with autism benifit from taking melitonin suppliments. The 3mg somehow works better than the 5mg. But 2 (3mg) tablets works quite well, which is what I take. Also liquid melitonin absorbs better than tablets.

ppl with meletonoin deficentcies often respond poorly to other types of sleep meds, often resulting in a hyper trance-like state.
Once when I took ambien, I had halucinations and threw out my mom's african statue because I figured that it was possesed, lunesa works for 3-4 days then quits working, there was another sleep med/antipsychotic I took and it also caused me to see elves running across my dorm room. Melitonin just makes me sleepy...no mental drama

Try the melitonin. It makes you sleepy unlike most sleep meds, it just gives you this calm sleepiness instead of some rushed altered state of consciousness.
You buy it in the vitamin section of the drug store, take it 30 min prior to bedtime.
It really works alot of ppl here take it and testified before that it works for them.

Hope that helps,

Jojo

the appropriate dose of melatonin is one 3mg.. tablet before bed.

I've also had unusual responses to sleep meds and sedatives. I was given a sleeping pill (not sure what it was) the night before a routine but major op. It should have knocked me right out, but I never slept at all that night. I wasn't even all that worried about the op, I'm sure the pill made me more alert than normal. And I was given quite large doses of a sedative, for an uncomfortable hospital procedure. The woman in the next bed had had the same procedure and she was talking like she was drunk. Meanwhile, I was just my usual self. The sedative had no effect on me whatsoever and I can remember the whole thing.

I am NT and recently traveled overseas and took Diphenhydramine on planes and then when home to combat jet lag in attempts to get back on a normal sleep schedule with an uninterrupted good nights sleep. After 3 nights of taking 2 or 3 Diphenhydramine, I was insecure, hysterical, depressed, anxious, feeling neglected, abandoned, taking everything personally, suicidal, ready to break up with my Aspie, etc.

Not good stuff.

I don't know much about Benadryl... I just took it once for allergy symptoms, and it made me so uncomfortable and anxious that I didn't try it again... I've been taking other antihistamines though... And I realized loratadine is, for me, temporary depression in a pill... I take this and I'm intensely, utterly sad and depressed... With cetirizin, it's more subtle, so it took me longer to notice it, but it also definitely ingrains depression and apathy in me. Nowadays, I don't touch these anymore, and I just live (happily) with my allergy symptoms.

To help sleeping, I'd say like others - melatonin helps for. Also, being a life-long big insomniac, some more trick that work with me are : trying to stay in darker, calm rooms in the hours before sleep; if I'm at the computer, I turn down the luminosity at a minimum; my room, especially my bed, has to be a place where I relax and sleep (no reading, no working on my laptop); I sleep with earplugs and in complete darkness - if complete silence and darkness cannot be achieved, I put a fan on to have a white noise background and put a mask over my eyes... Also, even if the night was bad, I try to get up early, in order to keep the same sleep - awake schedule as much as possible. And of course, being active, exercising every day, helps a lot...

My problem with Dramamine is that it makes me extremely tired, but unable to sleep after the first hour. When I'm tired I am completely irrational and agitated.