What is the TikTok gum challenge? Details explored as TikTok challenge involving spicy gum sends 10 children to the hospital
Mia Horton
Published Jan 28, 2026
No less than 10 kids were shipped off the medical clinic after they endeavored TikTok’s new zesty gum challenge. On April 5, 2023, WGGB-television detailed that few understudies learning at Orange, Massachusetts’ Dexter Park Grade School had a response to the gum brought throughout the break by another understudy.
According to Live Fox Now, Southborough police have distinguished the item being referred to as CaJohns Inconvenience Air pocket Air pocket Gum.
Specialists expressed that the air pocket gum is essential for a TikTok challenge in which members endeavor to make rises notwithstanding the gum’s intensity. Amazon is among the web-based retailers selling the food.
WGGB reports that Orange Fire Boss James Youthful Jr. claims that the bubblegum utilized in the gum challenge incorporates pepper extricate with a Scoville rating of 16 million, which is equivalent to pepper splash.
Understudies who took the TikTok gum challenge experienced consumed mouths and throats
According to media source MassLive, a few understudies at Dexter Park Grade School purchased a pack of CaJohn’s Difficulty Air pocket gum and gave it out to different understudies in the establishment. Because of its parts, which make it more excruciating than even the spiciest peppers on the planet, the item has been supported as “the most sultry air pocket gum in the world.”
As per the director, Elizabeth Teahan-Zielinski, as the kids bit the gum, their stomachs began to hurt and their mouths and throats consumed. In spite of not consuming the gum, a few children created eye and skin disturbances. Following this, the media source detailed that those with more serious consume wounds were shipped off the medical clinic.
While addressing media source WRAL, Kathleen Woodard, a parent of a nine-year-old debilitated youngster, said: On April 4, 2023, Woodard got a call from Dexter Park Primary School to get her child Michael after he devoured an obscure food.
“They strolled in, and, um, kids were crying, they were simply arranged a few doors down in the front lobby region. Like their hands were red, their countenances were beet red and they were crying saying it hurt, some of them resembled a dark red.”
The unexpected mayhem and hospitalizations made the Southborough Police Office caution local people in a Facebook post that the air pocket gum utilized in the gum challenge contains oleoresin capsicum. They expressed:
“Anybody found to have utilized the gum ought to be treated for broad openness to oleoresin capsicum. Promptly have them wash, wash around, let out water. Do this however many times as could be allowed.”
The gum challenge originally got some forward momentum in 2021 when TikTok clients posted recordings of themselves biting it. According to Insider, one TikToker said they needed to consume frozen yogurt for north of 10 minutes after they quit biting the gum. One more client expressed that she hurled thereafter.