


(An average NyQuil Cold and Flu bottle contains about 354 milliliters). According to the NyQuil website, the average serving of the liquid medication is 30 milliliters, about two tablespoons, every six hours. This means that the chicken is being marinated in high doses of NyQuil-and high doses of acetaminophen, doxylamine, dextromethorphan, or whatever other medications are contained in the NyQuil,” she says. “In the TikTok videos, people typically pour an entire bottle of NyQuil into the pan in which the chicken is being cooked. She is particularly concerned about how the amount of NyQuil consumed. “The NyQuil Chicken trend is potentially dangerous because cough and cold medications, such as NyQuil, can cause unwanted symptoms-some of which can be life-threatening-when used incorrectly,” Dr. Food and Drug Administration was forced to step in with a warning following reports of teenagers winding up in the emergency room - and in one tragic case, the challenge reportedly led to the death of a 15-year-old in Oklahoma.The explicit danger of partaking in the viral “sleepy chicken” TikTok trendĪccording to Kelly Johnson-Arbor, MD, FACEP, FUHM, FACMT, a medical toxicologist and co-medical director at the National Capital Poison Center, this dangerous trend has been circulating the internet for more than eight months and poses a serious threat to the public. The aim was to induce hallucinations, but the effects were potentially devastating. In one TikTok challenge that caught on in 2020, people took large doses of the allergy medicine typically sold under the name Benadryl. That being said, it’s wise to take these things seriously - especially since this isn’t the first time that a social media-spurred cooking trend has had the potential to wreak havoc. Yet upon closer examination, there didn’t actually appear to be much relevant content on TikTok, and in the end, it seemed more likely the whole thing was a rumor spread on Facebook. The craze supposedly encouraged students to - you guessed it - slap their teachers, and prompted enough concern for schools and police to issue warnings addressing it. It’s easy for things to get blown out of proportion this way, as last fall’s spurious “slap a teacher” TikTok trend demonstrated. Reassuringly, TechCrunch has pointed out that there don’t seem to be that many videos of people attempting the trend in earnest, and that a lot of the content recirculating online actually features users condemning the absurd recipe. In one video of the challenge that’s still up on Twitter, the creator warns ominously: “Sometimes the steam can make you sleepy.” “Put simply,” the statement says, “someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.” Even if you just cooked chicken but didn’t eat it, you could take in vast quantities of the medication just by inhaling the fumes released as it cooks - which could also hurt your lungs.

The agency pointed out that boiling meds can drastically increase their potency, and alter their properties in other ways.

“The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing - and it is. “A recent social media video challenge encourages people to cook chicken in NyQuil (acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine) or another similar OTC cough and cold medication, presumably to eat,” the FDA wrote in an appropriately meaty statement. The FDA released an official warning after videos of people cooking chicken soaked in NyQuil - nicknamed “sleepy chicken” - caught the media’s attention. A bizarre cooking technique appears to have taken over TikTok - and you absolutely shouldn’t give it a try.
