Favorite pimple stories (maybe TMI)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
321

I was at college (my sophomore year) and I was having an episode of pain right in the tailbone region. I’d been having these since my junior year of high school–right around my period but never told Mom (the one who makes doctor appointments). I felt back there and discovered three little lumps. Got out a mirror and saw three white heads. I thought I had another staph infection brewing (had one in 6th grade on my tush) and called mom because I knew this would require a trip home to the doc. Got the word that I had a pilinidal cyst–because of a dimple I had just above the tush split. I got back home, accidently hit myself RIGHT THERE with a bag of oranges (which really hurt) and then got some hot water to bring the infection up and hopefully break the thing open. It opened and it STUNK! Grayish-reddish gunk (I was later told that was a mix of pus, dissolved hair, and blood).

A year later, as a junior, I was having major illness issues–throat infections and strep. Mom concluded it was because of this pilonidal thing that should’ve been removed a year ago. Under local anasthetic and heavy sedation, the surgeon took a little wedge of flesh out. No problems since.
Now, the 6th grade boil–started as an itchy spot, grew rapidly. Mom tried squeezing on it–I fainted from the pain. Taken in to the doctor who squeezed lightly to culture the stuff and said I had a staph infection (most likely picked up from the wrestling mats I’d been sitting on during gym class). I was out of school for a week with antibiotics (and got a shot as well, which meant for a day I COULD NOT sit down). Hot packs were applied and 4 days later it broke open–thick, white, cheesy stuff that needed NO encouragement to express itself. I was allowed to go back to school–but couldn’t 0participate in gym class for 3 weeks, which was just FINE with me as the Presidential Physical Fitness tests were being given and I hated those.

THEN–the final ugly infection–my tonsils. I had deeply notched and pocked tonsiles where food got stuck, pus brewed, and when I pressed on them, pus just oozed out of every crevice. 1700 mg of Augmentin only suppressed the infection and ripped up my intestines. Those nasty tonsils got removed. Probably should have been removed back in my junior year of college…

Now I only have the average sized zits every now and then—at age 38. Ocassionally still get those deep cysts (Big Nasties) that don’t pop but hurt like crazy. I have one in my right ear as I type this.

322

Or more specifically, a little brother’s inhumanity to his older brother in their teenage years.

My brother had bad acne during his teenage years. One day he noticed another huge, red lump on his back that was a deep, unpustulated zit. Expecting a couple weeks of discomfort every time he touched it or rubbed it or bumped it, he was unusually open to my helpful solution: “I’ll lance it with this sharp X-acto knife and pop it, relieving the pressure.”

So we go into the bathroom, and without warning, I stab him with this X-acto knife with a pointy blade, to a depth of about 1/4". He howls in agony. “HANG ON, I’M GONNA SQUEEZE IT NOW!”, and I place my thumbs on either side of it and squeeze like I’m pulling a nail out. He drops to his knees, weeping. “ONE MORE TIME… IT’S A DEEP ONE!” and I re-apply pressure, pretending that there’s an ounce of pus in this poor, un-ripened back zit.

“Damn. Guess that one wasn’t ready to be popped yet.”

323

A former boyfriend had been complaining of tooth pain (man had horrible teeth to begin with) and finally went to the dentist. One side of his face WAS noticeably swollen.

He came home to tell me the grisly story of having an abcessed canine—no amount of Novocaine worked–apparently it is rendered useless when it combines with pus. His tooth had to be extracted–and canines have VERY long roots–so OWWWW! The dentist pressed and stroked to express the infection out of the tissue through the hole where his tooth had been.

As he told me this story, my whole mouth began to ache and I eventually told him I couldn’t take any more of his story.

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One time at summer camp, I got a splinter in the back of my leg from sitting on a wooden dock. I wen tto the camp nurse to get her to remove it. She poked around on it for a while and THOUGHT she had gotten it out. The spot remained sore the weeks after that. About 6 weeks later after a shower, I was feeling the back of my leg and decided to give a little squeeze.

The splinter oozed out with a little puddle of goo and pus. I should ahve saved that splinter and framed it.

Ah, good times. :cool:

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Oddly enough, the Conway & Steckler radio show last night was reading stories supposedly out of one of their books that were almost word for word exactly the same as some of the posts in this thread. I specifically remember the one about “placing it on the nightstand” and another zit where the person was in a car and showed the goo to his/her friends in the back seat.
I wonder if we’ve got a couple of celebrity readers here? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Ok after reading all these amazing stories I cannot help but share my own favourite popping stories.

The gut ooze:

I have my navel pierced and took good care of it so that it did not get infected when I had it done. About a year after I had it done I was in the shower scrubbing with one of those mesh type sponges that you buy at the body shop. Well I was really scrubbing away and accidentally snagged my ring. It hurt like hell when it tore a bit and I was left with a small stream of blood running down my leg. I got out and dried off and put a ban aid over the whole thing so it would heal. Well a few days later it got sore and read and quite hot. I knew that is was a bit infected so I put a glass of salt water over it and lay on my back for a while. This did not clear it up. Three days later it was puffy and real sore. I was laying in bed with the lights off and I reached my hand down to feel it. I gave it a little poke and Boom, my hand was soaked, my Pj’s were soaked and there was the strange sent of rotting donkey ass in the air. I didn’t not know what to do, I carefully reached over and turned on my lamp to survey the damage. I lifted up my pj shirt and my navel was filled to the brim with grey green chunky puss and it was running down my side. Luckily I had a box of Kleenex next to the bed and was able to soak up most of the mess. I went into the bathroom and worked on it for a good hour squeezing all the chunky green crap out of it till it bled good clean red blood. I fixed it up with lots of nice saline solution and polysporin. My navel ring is now cased in nice think scar tissue that will never grow out.
Weiner dog infestation.

Ok this was cool. My mother has one of those neurotic little red mini wiener dogs. Well most of them are healthy looking but let’s say if she paid for this one by the chromosome; it should have been 30% off. Well one day she noticed a bump on its chest right under its neck, the dog could not really get at it to scratch it with its little useless t-rex type appendages. So my mom being picker popper type from way back decides to have a closer look at it and give it a go. My dad holds the little beast and my mom gives it squeeze with both her thumb nails. Well in a surprisingly clean shot out pops two fat shiny squirming maggots. Well my dad releases the grip and runs to the bathroom to vacate his stomach of all contents in a noisy manner and my mom gags and chokes. I laugh my ass off at the spectacle being the twisted one I am and the wiener dog does nothing but gazes around wondering what the hell is going on. The wound healed up in 4 days after that with just a little bump under the skin. I guess they had it right in the old days when they used maggots to clean wounds.

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Just fineshed reading this thread… I laughed, I cried, I commiserated… well, i guess this is where I chime in… where to begin?
one time, I was working at a winery and it being the middle of harvest (Aug-Sept), i was sweating like (insert your favorite On-Trial Celeb) on the stand. and since working there i couldnt wear shorts, you can imagine the hell… anyhoo… i take a shower later that night and i notice a small red bump on the inside of my leg. well, hot compress, and i went to bed… next day, around noon, my leg feels like hell. i hit the bathroom, and it had grown… big…red…angry… i put a compress on it( little note, when working in an industry that uses near scalding water to clean things, mix with cold!!) the near scalding dulled the pain,and i before i went home, i grabbed a sterile lancet, and a topical anistetic(sp). well, i got home, and showered… swabed down with isopropyl, broke open the topical, and waited till it was numb…

so i nicked the top. blood and a little white pus… ok… so i squeezed… nada… well, grabbing the closest adult beverage( one of the perks, free bottle of wine a month :smiley: ) and taking a few belts, i went at it again with the lancet… more blood… no pus… still a big freaking lump…

so, bering down with both thumbs on either side, i squeezed… PAIN!!!..blood, yellowish puss, and a lumpy core… AFter taking more luqid painkiller, i looked at the lump… feindis little thing was an ingrown hair, 1/4" long…

i still have a depression where that thing was…

and that bigzit link is down :frowning:

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Remind me never to shake hands with you people!

<shudder>YEESH!<shudder>

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A couple stories from my youth down on the ranch in Texas:

When I was a teen, my black lab rolled over in front of me to present a grape-sized tick buried halfway into the soft flesh of her thigh. When I tried to pull on it, half of its body broke away, leaving the remainder buried in my dog’s thigh. (The tick must have been dead already, as it wasn’t full of blood like normal, but rather this stuff like in the center of a Junior Mint.)

I pressed on either side of the buried half-tick, and the rest of the body popped right out. I kept pushing, and the hole began extruding a fluffy grayish-white substance that looked exactly like light-textured frosting being squeezed through a cake-decorating tip. I continued until there was a huge glob covering most of her thigh, and then had to get a paper towel to clean up the mess before I could go on. My dog waited paiently on her back until I returned – seemingly, she was highly releived to get this mess out of her leg – and eased still more of this frosting stuff out of her leg. In total, I must have removed two full tablespoons of this gunk before all was said and done.

She wagged her tail when it was over.

As if that weren’t enough … in Texas there are insects called bot flies that lay eggs on cows’ ankles. Cows then lick their ankles while grooming themselves and ingest these tiny eggs, where they grow into awful maggots that burrow through the cow’s flesh and form giant maggot-filled zits on the cow’s backs.

These lumps are probably two inches tall and an inch high. The maggot lives in them for a while before emerging as a new bot fly, so the lump has a hole in the top with the bug’s head just below the surface, peeking out at the sky. Partially filling and scattered just around the caldera is about a quarter teaspoon of sand-like material, which is the little chunks of dried cow flesh the maggot chewed up while burrowing through the beef.

After brushing away the powdered cow, you have to use a stout four-finger grip to pop the lump – two fingers on top, thumbs below. (Remember how thick a cow’s flesh is.) Squeeze … squeeze … and POW – a horrible, fat maggot half as long as your pinky and every bit as wide pops out. Sometimes they fly in a big arc off into the pasture. Therefore, it behooves you not to stand directly in front of the lump while you squeeze.

The maggots look not unlike the queen of an ant colony – glistening, dead-white body with a black ant-like head. Sometimes they die while in the lump. In this case, you can grab hold of the head and pull this dried husk of a maggot body out of the hole. The lumps with dead ones often produce a couple tablespoons of thick, yellow pus as well, if you employ the four-finger grip described above.

And here I sit, 20 years later, a high-tech guy living in the city … and I long for those wholesome days on the ranch …

330

Dog fondant - yum!

Is talking about your animals pimples bestiality of the zit world??

I have a story of a body product that wasn’t a zit but still very interesting. I’d still like to know what it was…

My boy was born by cesarean in a very uncomplicated manner, was big and healthy and had no problems whatsoever. Except that he “snurkled” whenever he breathed. My baby books said that babies can be snuffly creatures so I didn’t worry too much.

When he was about five weeks old my husband was bathing with him (in Japan babies don’t have separate baths but go in the big bath resting on a parent’s lap) and as he was supporting the baby’s head while I washed his face, I suddenly saw this THING up his nose, appearing and disappearing with every breath.

It was white, and right at the back of his nose - I only noticed it because his head was tilted right back and the harsh bathroom light was at just the right angle.

I got a Q-tip (yes I KNOW you shouldn’t do this!) and went fishing. It took two goes when the Q-tip went in a really long way, then I hooked this thing and pulled. And pulled, and pulled! This huge white rope came out! Ick!

It was about 3 inches long, and not at all snot-like in texture. It was definitely tissue of some kind, dead white and ropy. There was another one lurking up his other nostril too, but not so long as the first.

The baby’s snurkles stopped right away, never returning.

But what WERE those things?? If he’d had a natural delivery I’d have thought he might have partially inhaled some of the amniotic sac or something like that, but he was lifted out of me and suctioned immediately. I wondered if they were the lining of his nasal passages or something horrible like that. Any ideas, anyone?

331

That is messed up.

About 15 years ago, when I was in college, various parts of my face started to hurt. Over the course of a couple of days, the pain localized to my upper left gumline, and my cheek started to swell up. I was awakened by the pain at about 4 a.m. Went to the dentist and he found an abscessed tooth, which he did a root canal on. I was a starving student at the time, so I couldn’t afford to have a crown put on the tooth. I forgot about it for a long time.

Fast forward about 12 years. I was attending an out-of-town technical conference. For whatever reason my tooth decided to get infected again. It started as a dull ache which I tried to ignore, but by the time I got to my hotel room, I was barely conscious. This big pimple-like lesion erupted on my gum over the space of about an hour. It was beefy red with a white dot at the peak. The pimple, and my tooth, hurt so much I could not bring my teeth together. Solid foods were out of the question.

Then, as quickly as it started, the pain stopped. Stupidly, I decided to go to the conference, armed with a tube of Anbesol. So I sat down in a room watching a guy give a lecture, and it started hurting again, bad. I am sure my eyes were glistening with tears. I tried to numb it with some ice water, but I couldn’t close my mouth without a blinding sheet of pain. I ended up drooling water all over my shirt and the table in front of me.

Long story short, the pimple-like thing popped spontaneously. Quantities of disgusting syrupy pus and blood were released into my mouth. I managed not to embarrass myself, and after the pimple had popped, the pain never came back.

332

Hyperelastic, I certainly hope you got to your dentist as soon as possible. While this thread happens to be the single most enthralling read on the SDMB, I’m mindful of the fact that you could lose teeth and suffer other medical unpleasantness if you let this go. I’m more interested in tales of volcano strength splorches of primordial goo than subterranean explosions. Take care of yourself so you can contribute more stories to this thread.

333

Yeah, I went and got it fixed as soon as I got home. My dentist gave me an antibiotic and then made me a crown. It hasn’t bothered me in a couple of years.

334

Love this thread!
Years ago, I went on a week-long beach trip with a friend of mine. Every morning we’d walk about 2 miles along the beach barefoot. About the 4th day there, I developed a blister on the bottom of my foot. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, just thought it was a blister from the new shoes I’d been wearing. I just slapped a bandaid on it and ignored it, thinking it would pop on its own.
Two days later I could barely walk. It had grown into the biggest blister I’ve ever seen covering the sole of my foot almost completely.
I was a big wuss so I didn’t try to pop it myself. Instead, my friend’s father volunteered to do the job with a sterilized needle. He lanced it and a big gush of fluid, pus and sand came shooting out.
Sand! It still makes me shudder when I think about it.

335

Ahhhhh!!! A foot pearl!!!

I don’t have any good personal zit stories (compared to what’s in this thread, anyway). I do have a small sebaceaous cyst on my left shoulder that can produce enough material to spatter a mirror.

My best zit story comes from my dog, Snoopy (now deceased, though not from this incident). About three summers ago, she started this routine of rolling over on her back anytime I was near her. I didn’t think this was odd–she loved belly rubs–until I noticed a mass on the right side of her chest. It was about the length of my hand, and very hard to the touch. We took her to the vet’s, where they shaved the fur off of the area and gave us some blue stuff to apply to the lump several times a day. One day, when Mom was washing the lump, the skin covering the lump split. Massive amounts of chunky pus, ranging from pale yellow to tan in color, came oozing out of the fissure. I don’t remember a bad smell; I just remember that Mom looked like she was going to pass out. Enough pus came out of the lump to saturate half of a small bar towel, which was promptly disposed of after being wrapped in several layers of plastic bags. Snoopy didn’t seem to mind at all; I think she was asleep the whole time. The wound left by this incident continued to “weep” for almost a week, but it healed quickly after that.

336

I just had a very strange experience: a zit inside of my nose.

I was blowing my nose when I felt a painful lump right on the inside of the nostril. I went to the bathroom to investigate. The lump was positioned right near the edge of my nostril, so I turned the side of my nose out to see if I could see what the problem was.

It was a zit, about to pop, with a hair sticking right out of the middle. I got some tweezers and yanked out the hair, which must not have been attatched to the follicle anymore, because it slid right out. Then, because of the pressure of my thumb on the outside of my nose, the zit went “splort” and a droplet of yellow ooze came from the place where the hair had been.

Ah, relief.

337

Lots of us on the board have had nose zits. I used to think I was alone until I landed on the SDMB. Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten any really dramatic zits, though I did once had an oddly big one on the outside of my left elbow. It was the best zit-pop I ever had, but it wasn’t half as good as some of the stuff here.

My ex once was saving a back zit for me to pop, but he accidentally popped it by leaning against a doorway a day or so before I was going to go after it. He apologized profusely. I eventually forgave him – for THAT, anyway.

338

What I really really want to know is what happens to a zit if you don’t pop it? I’ve never not popped one. I’ve poked or popped ever zit I’ve ever had since I was born. Every once in a while I get a zit and I think, “okay let’s be scientific here and see what happens if I don’t pop this zit.” And then I pop it. So I have no concept of the life cycle of a zit. Do they just pop on their own? Does the gunk inside get reabsorbed into the body and the zit go away? And if it does, how can anyone stand that? I swear that the very next zit I get I will not touch it and I will find out the answer to the mystery.

Okay I know that’s never going to happen so someone has to tell me.

339

i’m new to this board, i got here through zfilter, and i have to applaud each and every one of you who have added your stories to this thread. i have now been nauseated for 3 straight days. since you have all gone through so much to bring me this joy (until i got up for a snack and realized that yogurt wasn’t the best meal while reading this thread, and i can’t really say “joy” described my feeling at that moment) i felt i ought share one of my own stories and hope that perhaps some of you will appreciate it.

when i was 5 years old, my mother noticed that i was walking with my head tilted to the side. as i went about the house i would hold it still, though i actually didn’t realize i was doing it. my mother asked me why i was holding my head in that manner and once i realize what i was doing i said “because it hurts to hold it straight.”
now, i have a chronic immune disorder, so my mom thought that perhaps it was just one of my “weird things” and we all went about our business. the next day i went to school as usual, but when i returned home i had a small lump on my neck. it was about the size of a peanut and my mother assumed it was a swollen lymph node. she called the doctor who said not to worry, it was just my body fighting something off.

the next morning i woke up with a HUGEly swollen lump on my neck. it was about the size of a tennis ball. imagine this on the neck of a skinny 5 year old. my mom realized this was no “swollen lymph node” and called the doctor’s office back. an extremely rude nurse told my mother she was being paranoid and not to worry but my mother said she wasn’t asking to come in, she was telling the nurse to expect her within 20 minutes.
my mother brought me into the office and when the nurse saw my now baseball sized growth, she promptly his under the desk, literally.

i was ushered into the examining room where the doctor palpated my lump. he explained that it was too hard (the lump, not the procedure) and he could not lance it safely in the office, and i would have to go to the hospital.

shortly thereafter me, my mother, and a softball sized growth arrived at the hospital. at this point my head was bent so far to the left that my left ear was almost touching my shoulder.
blood was drawn, iv lines were started, and i was taken off to the OR.
(this part has been told to me by my surgeon, the rest is from memory)

once i was under the doctor took out his scalpel and got to work on my second head. he made a small slit and approximately 6 cups of thick, gray and foul smelling pus drained out into a basin below, at which point a nurse who was attending the procedure dropped the instrument tray she’d been holding, threw up her hands, shrieked and ran out of the OR, screaming.

(back to my memory now)
two hours later i was in the recovery room. my folks were there, along with many balloons and an ass load of smurfs. i’m talking millions of these things. i had a nice baby sitter. everyone in the room was in yellow coveralls. i was now a “dirty patient.”
the lump on my neck was the result of a “deep cervical abscess.” it had been classified a “lethal infection” and had eaten away at my neck all the way through to my spine which was now visible because of the fact that the wound had to close from the inside out (see countless previous tales of excised woe on those healing techniques.) every day after that 3 times a day for the next 3 months i would go through the following procedure.

25 feet of gauze would be pulled from the hole in my neck. the hole would be irrigated with betadine and then sterile saline, and then 25 feet of gauze (the length would shorten with time as the hole grew smaller) would be packed back into my neck with long wooden q tips, and then the whole thing would be covered with more gauze. i was not allowed out of the hospital until my mother could do this on her own and no one was allowed into my room without the yellow garb because i had been septic.

over time my mother got used to the hysterical shrieking that i would let loose whenever she poked at my raw and exposed muscle with the q tips and the hole slowly healed. now all that’s left is a thin white line in the fold of my neck to remember the incident by. luckily i had an excellent surgeon. in a way i’m sad because i’ve now had 14 surgeries and while that one is at least in the top three most disgusting ones, there’s very little evidence of the horror.

i hope you all enjoy my tale and again, i want to thank you for this fabulous thread, may it live on throughout eternity!

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and now i have to do this annoying little added post because i foolishly forgot to click “subscribe” below. a thousand pardons…