Benadryl induced neuropathy

I just stumbled on your post. I have small fiber neuropathy (SFN), and live with a great deal of discomfort over large portions of my skin. I have used diphenhydramine for many years and at times in large doses, i.e., 100mg at a time. I use it as a sleep aid. I would like to follow this post and see what sort of responses you get. At this point my questions would be 1) is there a correlation between diphenhydramine use and the onset of SFN, 2) If discontinuation of diphenhydramine might lessen or reverse the effects.

Good luck to you in your quest for relief, you are not alone.

Hello @mayolastresort, Welcome to Connect. You are not alone in the bad news category. A lot of us have had to learn to live with neuropathy. There are treatments available for the symptoms but there are no cures, unless your neuropathy is caused by damaged or compressed nerves that can be helped with surgery or therapy. You mentioned having edema in your dominant hand. I have lymphedema in my legs with the right leg being a little worse. I have to wear compression socks daily to keep it under control.

I was not able to find a Phase 4 clinical trial of Benadryl and neuropathy. Do you have the link to the study that you can share with me?

Thank you for your reply. HUGS. I cannot send a link. Search benadry + neuropathy. Just that way in your browser.Benadryl and Peripheral neuropathy - a phase IV clinical study of FDA data
Summary:
Peripheral neuropathy is found among people who take Benadryl, especially for people who are female, 60+ old, have been taking the drug for 1 - 6 months.

The phase IV clinical study analyzes which people take Benadryl and have Peripheral neuropathy. It is created by eHealthMe based on reports of 70,795 people who have side effects when taking Benadryl from the FDA, and is updated regularly. You can use the study as a second opinion to make health care decisions.

With medical big data and AI algorithms, eHealthMe enables everyone to run phase IV clinical trial to detect adverse drug outcomes and monitor effectiveness. Our original studies have been referenced on 600+ peer-reviewed medical publications including The Lancet, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and Nature. Most recently, phase IV clinial trails for COVID 19 vaccines have been added.

I stopped using Benadryl in March - neuropathy has not subsided. Neuropathy is found among people who take Benadryl, especially for people who are female, 60+ old , have been taking the drug for 1 - 6 months

@mayolastresort you should be able to post links in a few days. New members are prevented from posting links for a short period of time to prevent advertisers and spammers from posting in our patient discussions. Here is the link you mentioned.
https://www.ehealthme.com/ds/benadryl/peripheral-neuropathy/
I couldn't find it because it's not a Mayo Clinic study. Excerpt from second paragraph of the summary above:
"It is created by eHealthMe based on reports of 70,795 people who have side effects when taking Benadryl from the FDA, and is updated regularly."

It definitely is food for thought.

John it is a clinical study, not a clinical trial

Also it wasn't done by Mayo Clinic not that it makes any difference other than I couldn't find it because I added Mayo Clinic to the search phrase 🙃

After all these years did you neuropathy ever get better after quitting benadryl?

Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. Great place to connect with people having similar issues.

I would like to hear from more people on Benadryl, my daughter takes it and has developed neuropathy, I myself have Idiopathic SNN but after 15 years has progressed in large nerve from knees down. Daughter is experiencing symptoms in feet plus hands. We all need to unite and get this neuropathy addressed at a government level like Parkinson has been. Whete is OUR Michael JFox type Representative?