Worst acne experience? (Probably TMI)

In My Humble Opinion
1

For the most part I have been over my (somewhat severe) acne since May 2004 when I joined the Army and got what was the largest cystic pimple I have ever had on my forehead. Thankfully I was in reception battalion that week, so my drill sergeants downrange didn’t know my former nickname: Stop-Sign. The DIs called me that due to the fact that my pimple was swollen, red, and – due to my messing with it – had a bizarrely shaped head of white pus for “lettering.” I don’t know what it was about Ft. Benning, or if it was merely that the Accutane needed a few months after treatment to take full effect, but I have rarely had acne outbreaks since.

I am now 23 years old, and have a cystic pimple whose size rivals that one four years ago. It is on the left side of the bridge of my nose and pressing into my eye. Yesterday it became evident that this massive infection factory on my face had infected my eyelid. So I had to go urgent care because my eye was swollen shut and they gave me an injection in the ass and 20 elephant pills (amoxicillin). I have to go back again today. Ugh.

Honestly, I think this has been the worst acne experience of my life. At. 23. Years. Old. Goddamn it, this shit needs to stay off my face forever more. I have had enough :mad:

So, what was your worst experience with some form of acne?

2

My husband and I had just gotten engaged. His brother was getting married, and it was my first opportunity to meet most of his family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, all coming in from out of state. Dress up, try to impress them with his choice.

Got a great big painful enormous zit on my upper lip. Right before the wedding, nothing I could do but cover it up as best I could. Was seated next to his aunt at the reception. There we are eating, talking, I’m doing my best to make them all think he’s picked the greatest girl ever. She looks over — “Oh! you have some food on your face!” She dabs at it with her napkin. The zit breaks, blood and pus cascades down over my lips, down my chin. I had to run for the ladies’ room and was in there at least a half an hour until it stopped bleeding, putting cold water on it. Thanks, auntie.

He married me anyway.

3

I have nothing to add personally, but will respectfully submit for anyone’s perusal
the standard by which all zit stories are measured. Start with post #44. You won’t be disappointed.

4

Gosh, Earl… I’m touched…

It’s so nice to be remembered!

(And these days even I have trouble finding the scar)

5

I’m sure the thread has been purged by now, but when I met my husband face-to-face for the first time, I had a nasty abscess on my upper lip. It was bad enough that I needed antibiotics to completely get rid of it. He married me anyway.
:smiley:

I still get bad acne when I’m pre-menstrual. It’s on my list of things to address when I go in for my physical next month.

Robin

6

I read Broomstick’s posts yesterday. Shortly thereafter I learned that the doctors plan on making an incision in my pimple to drain it. I’m a little freaked out about it now. Thanks, Broomstick :slight_smile:

Seriously, I’m sure my experience won’t be nearly as bad as yours. You deserve a Purple Heart for that (even if the scar is fading).

7

Well, the idea is to get it taken care of BEFORE you have a story like mine. :slight_smile:

8

Oh, I think that everyone who has ever read that story will remember it. Not only because it was SUCH a gross infection, but because you told it so well. It’s one of the classic SDMB stories. All other zit and infection stories will be measured up against it, and will likely be found wanting.

9

Manuel Noriega!

10

Are you kidding? It’s a legend! It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. (glad to hear the scar is fading)

Sigmagirl–awesome story. And ewwww!

11

Me as well as “boy, Mr. Krebbs is going to get completely pwnd the moment someone links to Broomstick’s story - his poor pimple will seem so inadequate.”

12

Oh, great - my lifetime claim to fame will be a ZIT story!:rolleyes::eek::smack:

13

I’m currently in week 6 of dealing with an abscess that rivals Broomstick’s story. In my groin area. Not sure I can tell it as well as she did, though. I do have pictures however, so maybe mine tops hers.

14

Just inside the nostril. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

15

The groin may turn out to be grosser than the face - so your chances are good - and it sounds like Broomstick might be tired of her laurels - so I think you should go for it…

16

This isn’t taking off like I’d hoped, and of course I don’t have anything to rival Broomstick’s story (I’m sorry, Broom, but that is the first thing I always remember about you), but here’s a quick one:

One of the most embarrassing zits I ever had was when I was about seventeen, during our class trip to Disney World. We had been charging around the Magic Kingdom for a few hours having a blast, seeing and being seen by other Grad Nite celebrants. Then we all went back to the hotel room to freshen up for dinner, and I was horrified to see that what had started the day as a small red spot next to my nose had become the world’s most giant and obvious whitehead. It had actually begun to branch out and curve lovingly round one nostril in a most unbecoming fashion.

I knew I could fix this problem if I could get just thirty seconds of privacy, but unfortunately the hotel room was one of those with the mirror and the sink area right out in the open. All the other kids who had come on the trip were gamboling up and down the halls and jumping on the beds and opening their suitcases and making prank phone calls and (oh horrors!) one guy actually leaned over my shoulder to see what I was up to.

Apparently I was not fated to see what would happen if I squeezed the mother of all whiteheads. I had to go into the mirror-less toilet room, and thrash around yanking on my snout until it went splat.

17

Well, I can finally add one. It happened after the original zit thread (which I got my mom, the RN, to read, and even she was disturbed by Broomstick’s story).

This was a couple of summers ago. I was going to fly out to visit my brother in Seattle the same time my parents did. Less than a week before I left, I got a pimple on my lower back, just above my butt.

First, it was a tiny little whitehead. I tried to scrape it off. The next day, it was an angry, red boil, all firm and hot. I tried hot compresses, and it started giving up pus. A lot of it. Chunks of yellowy pus with streaks of blood, much more of it than should have fit in even the worst pimple. Also, it hurt. A lot. It hurt to sit. It hurt to stand. It even hurt to lie down on my stomach, though not as much. There was no way in hell I was going to lie down on my back.

So, I got to see my doc the very next day. Hmmm. Abscess. Yes, those are painful. So, he slapped some lidocaine on it, and then he cleaned it out.

Then, he stuffed it with gauze coated with some irritating substance, to force the abscess to heal up.

The next day, I flew to Seattle. From Dallas. On drugs.

They were the good drugs - Vicodin 5/500 - and I had permission to take two at a time. Two at a time means I’m curled up in Happy Land where everything is warm and golden, everybody loves me, and I dream of fuzzy puppies and kittens. I’ve had Vicodin for my gall bladder removal, my appendectomy, and my tonsilectomy, and it always worked wonderfully.

Except this time.

I spent five torturous hours on planes, trying to pad my poor backside any way I could. I couldn’t sleep, which is what I usually do if I’m hurting and the meds aren’t working. I even took a third two hours into it. I’m sure it helped. I don’t want to think about what it would have been like without the third. :shudder:

All I could do that first night in Seattle was lie on my stomach while my mom put hot compress after hot compress on my butt. At one point, she tried to use a Q-tip to put some ointment in the abscess. I levitated and screamed at the same time. It took me twenty minutes to unclench.

It was . . . not my favorite family visit.

A week after I got back, it was mostly healed. Just to be on the safe side, I washed all my panties in hot water with lots of bleach. Ruined the elastic. Yet, a week later, another innocuous pimple showed up and started getting angry.

It was a weekend, so I went to the doc in a box clinic. The very nice lady doctor there took one look, pronounced “community-acquired MRSA,” gave me a very large shot in the tuchas, a prescription for horse pill antibiotics, and more of the blessed Vicodin. I threw out all my undies and bought new, and it never, ever came back again.

Yet.

(I still check my butt in the mirror, fearing what I might find.)

18

Come on, let’s see 'em.

19

I will be back by Monday at the latest to post pics. I took them via cameraphone whilst in the hospital ER. It burst while I was in the waiting area. (I have a pic of that, too).

20

I’ve had a couple, and strangely, they mostly involve my ears.

Story the First: my left earlobe started getting, well, firm. And purplish. Clearly pimple-ish, but no obvious way to clean the sucker out. Finally, the earlobe got so full of whatever-it-was that it started to jut out at a weird angle. When my neck started to feel tender, I recognized that I had an infection that was traveling, and you don’t want one of those right next to your brain, so I got my ass (and ear) to a doctor.

He said yep, infected sebaceous cyst, let’s clean 'er out. So he shot me full of something (lidocaine?), which made it feel even more full, distended, and gross. By this time, I was lying on my side, with a drape with a little hole on it covering my face. So, he gave the lido a little time to take effect, and went to work. Sliced into the back of the lobe with a scalpel. That, by the way, sounds really loud when it’s right on your ear. Sounded like tearing paper. He then took something, probably forceps of some kind, and squeezed.

The nurse said that the goo hit two walls behind the doctor. Fortunately, he was wearing a face shield. They cleaned it out and packed the lobe with a little strip of gauze soaked in disinfectant. Up to that point I was fine, but the “packing” process made me feel a bit woozy. I had to be vigilant, because red ooze had a tendency to pour out of the lobe the rest of that day. My fiancee had to pull the gauze out the following morning, lucky her. But, it healed up well, and to date, no more trouble. With that ear.

Story the Second: right below my right earlobe, there was a bump. I had this bump for freakin’ ever. It wasn’t painful, and it wasn’t red, it was just…a bump. My wife kept saying, “It’s getting bigger!” but I wasn’t convinced. Really, it was there for years.

As luck would have it, around Halloween last year I got an actual pimple in the exact same spot. The process of destroying that pimple apparently opened up an access tunnel into the bowels of this other beast. I still remember quite clearly that I was watching Bravo’s “scariest movie scenes”, and they were right at The Devil’s Rejects as I was probing this area with vigor. And then, very suddenly, the lump I’ve had as long as I can remember lets go.

There was a sound. It was, as best I can describe it, “piff”. Kinda disappointing after all that time. What was interesting, though, was my hand. It was covered with…something. Something that was white, but completely dry, like crumbly wax. There was a tiny bit more in the bump, but that was basically it, over in one piff, no blood or anything. And now there’s no sign that the thing ever existed.