Let’s just get right to the point – cooking chicken with NyQuil is extremely dangerous and an absolutely horrible idea.
NATIONAL | The internet has been home to some pretty insane challenges throughout the years. From the cinnamon challenge to the milk crate challenge, there has been no shortage of hopeful social media personalities trying to get their 15 minutes of fame by putting their physical safety on the line. We have even seen the extremes of people partaking in the tide pod challenge – where people literally ate laundry detergent for some “clout” in the media spheres. Well, it seems we are heading back to these extremes and witnessing people ingesting a new social media challenge ready to send them to the emergency room.
The NyQuil Chicken Challenge is the newest kid on the block for the internet’s viral challenges. As you may be able to gather from the name, this challenge consists of eating chicken that has been coated and cooked in NyQuil, the cold and flu medication. This challenge, aside from being downright disgusting, is also dangerous. According to the FDA, the challenge “could be very unsafe. Boiling a medication can make it much more concentrated and change its properties in other ways. Even if you don’t eat the chicken, inhaling the medication’s vapors while cooking could cause high levels of the drugs to enter your body. It could also hurt your lungs”. In simple terms, this challenge could cause anyone foolish enough to undertake it to overdose unknowingly.
What Happens If You Overdose On NyQuil?
Like any other form of overdose, overdosing on NyQuil is dangerous and can be fatal. According to Drugs.com, Symptoms of NyQuil overdose other than fatality include:
- Difficulty breathing
- Dilated pupils or blurred vision
- Dry mouth
- Hallucinations
- Have difficulty passing urine or not passing as much urine as usual for you
- Hyperactivity
- Insomnia
- Excessive tiredness or sleepiness
- Liver problems such as dark urine, feeling tired, poor appetite, abdominal (stomach) pain, light-colored stools, throwing up, or yellow skin or eyes
- Seizures
- Severe dizziness
- Severe anxiety
While an over-the-counter drug, NyQuil is still a very strong drug, especially if it is concentrated, and should not be abused or used in any way other than instructed. According to the most recent data from the CDC, 91,799 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in 2020. Do not become a number of this statistic because of some cooking challenge abomination.
