This thread is making me feel slightly ill. And yet I can’t stop reading. <shudder>
The most memorable zit I ever encountered was on a classmate’s face in high school. He always had a problem with acne, but this one monstrosity started in the middle of his left cheek, and kept growing. And growing. And growing. His face was so swollen at one point that his eye was held partway shut. Truly appalling. I’ve seen him again in recent years, and while he has pitting from the acne, there is no visible remnant of that particular zit. I’m sure it’s burned onto his soul, though.
Side question…how come folks with acne don’t pop the zits that have come to a white head? Is it because of the risk of scarring? I don’t know how they resist the temptation!
My worst zit was on the back of my earlobe. It turned into a little pus-filled nodule, and I ended up squeezing it between my fingers idly one day. Churned out a bit of pus, blood, and, of course, a little hard nodule of pus.
Now I’m looking at zit popping videos on YouTube. Oh dear.
I had a sizable boil on my back about five years ago. Normally I have a pretty good reach and can at least pick at the bastards until they gave in, but this one only got worse (gee, I wonder why they tell us not to pick at them?). At the time I wasn’t in a relationship (this was also before I learned from the SDMB that it was ok to ask someone to do that), so I didn’t have anyone to help. When I went home for spring break I went in to see a dermatologist and he lanced it for me. I thought it was neat when he was stuffing gauze into the cavity, but the sensation when he removed it the next day was… unique. It seemed like I could actually feel the coil of gauze unwinding, like a spiral sharp searing and stinking. It was painful, but I was distracted by how dynamic the sensation was. After that I had to wash it out with peroxide and pack it with bacitracin twice a day. I developed a pretty good aim for pouring stuff over my shoulder.
With regard to not picking, gigi, the simple reason is that popping zits could spread the bacteria and make it worse in general. More specifically, though, there’s an area of the face known as “the triangle of death,” corresponding roughly to to the corners of the mouth and the bridge of the nose. The way the blood supply works there is that bacteria can conceivably get taken to the brain. I forget the specifics, but that’s the general idea. I emphasize the word CAN; instances of that are exceedingly rare.
I finished Accutane about one year ago. I have been large zit free due medication for about 2+ years. Regardless of how liberating my clear skin has been, I too miss popping a nice big one. However, I do not miss constantly having a swollen and pus filled face. (Amazing how much nicer people are to you with clear skin.) Though I have to go to work now, when I get back I’ll post some good stories.
Slight hijack, anybody regret popping their massive zit because doing so left a scar?
Ah, that is what corner walls are for. (The outside corner.) I had a smaller-than-a-pea-sized zit on my back, and it was in the middle enough, so my finger tips could touch it, but there was no leverage for squeezing. It was annoying because it lined up with some of my athletic gear. It had to go.
There was a nice, sharp wall corner in my bathroom where part of the shower stuck out. I leaned really hard with the corner’s edge against that little bastard’s side, so all I had to do was add a bit of lateral pressure with my finger tips form the other side.
Worked like a charm, no second person needed. Dabbed it with alcohol after.
No, the true test of love is when one person has to CLEAN OUT and repack the damned wound. I did this when my husband had his pilonidal abcess removed. My husband did it when the incision on my hysterectomy developed abcesses.
When I just couldn’t get one, I used a slightly different approach.
The sucker was painful; I couldn’t lean back in a chair comfortably. So, it was time to declare war. Since I couldn’t reach the darn thing in the center of my back, I started brainstorming. Finally, I settled on a pair of old barbecue tongs (no, I have not since used them for any culinary purpose). I wrapped toilet paper around the grippy bits to catch the nastiness, securing it with tape. Then, because I couldn’t get enough “dig deep” leverage with my arm behind my back, I leaned back against a wall, which put enough pressure on the tongs to allow them to dig in under Zitzilla. And oh, it was such a relief…the tissue on the tongs was quite soaked, and I experienced relief for the first time in a long time.
With all i’ve read on this thread, the one word that has me feeling queasy is teaspoon. It’s the association of spoons and food that make it so nauseating.
One day, back when I was in college (ten years ago OMG I’m old), I was puttering around the Dope and my arpit itched. Because I was alone and there was no one to see how uncouth I was, I scratched it. And I felt a LUMP. The size of a pea. I swear, I thought it was some kind of cancer. I pulled down my sleeve and placed a finger on either side of it, gently pulling the skin so that I could get a better view of it. And it just EXPLODED. All over the monitor.
I had one festering on the corner of my chin for close to a week and when I finally popped it… well, it didn’t really pop. It broke. And the pus didn’t splatter. It oozed out of the affected area like mayo out of one of those squeeze bottle you’d find at the grocery. By the time all of the oil had been drained from the offending pustule, I was ten pounds lighter and seriously dehydrated.
Why on earth did she not get it taken care of before it reached the grapefruit stage? I think I’d go see a dermatologist when it got to the cherry stage. Grape at the very latest. (I wonder if there is some sort of official fruit scale used to judge strange body growths. I guess it could range from blueberry to like giant mutant watermelon.)
Since I’m posting here, I suppose that I owe a story to this thread, too. When I was around 15 a handful of times I got these tender lumps under my arms, I guess they were boils or something but the lump was fairly deep and the skin was never red just raised. They went away on their own except for one that was more sore than usual. One day in the shower I squeezed the area experimentally and a thin spray of dark blood shot out with enough force to hit the shower wall about an arm’s length in front of me. I squeezed again and a little more shot out and then a little pus and then the tell-tale trickle of fresh blood that signals the end of a successful popping session. After that the mysterious lump cleared up.
I really hope this doesn’t end up being the last post made in this thread.
I had some odd armpit zit about 6 months ago. I think it was some odd allergic reaction to the deodorant because I haven’t seen it coming back since switching deodorants. It was only under my right arm (if I remember right). It got some nice distance, that’s for sure.
