Infraorbital vein. Connects directly to brain via venous cavernous sinus. Risk of meningitis and death. Danger zone is from corners of mouth to outside corners of eyes. Don’t pop zits there. Everywhere else is safe (from a life or death perspective).
I’m guessing that under the jaw is still slightly dangerous—my oral surgeon gave me a lecture when she found out that I had opened up an abscess there. Maybe abscesses are different from zits in that respect?
Re jester’s questions: I think some pores are just more open than others and collect gunk faster, so you have to clean them out more often. I’ve got one like that on my nose.
The book did cover the big date zit thing but I don’t remember what it said exactly. I have another book here though. :rolleyes: Nice hobby I have here. What a renaissance woman I am. (or Gentlewoman scholar or something.)
Breaking Out also covered that motherlode pore phenomenon (someone on the board coined that once for the pore that always re-fills and it’s so gross but no, in my mind, that’s the technical term for it. It’s in one of the 18 page zit threads.)
It said that all these different factors affect sebum production from day to day, but sometimes a pore gets “switched on” and produces more, and never switches back off again. That’s not very technical either. But it’s true that oil glands can be different sizes, and that follicles can lose their shape from all this time spent being full of gunk or even infected, picked at, etc. So those kinds of conditions would contribute to a pore that becomes old faithful.
I hate it when people call the nose gunk worms! But I think that is a case of sebum. The other book that talks about that, I still have. It is called “The Beauty Bible” by Paula Begoun.
and she goes on about the P.acnes bacteria growing, causing irritation and inflamation, oil gland rupturing, spilling the contents of oil, bacteria etc to surrounding tissue and the body sending lymph to the area causing swelling.
Anything that affects hormones can be a trigger, and stress affects hormones. So when you are thinking about your big date you get a zit.
I could have sworn she had something about picking too. But it is the usual boring stuff about not using your nails and if you have to force it you are doing more harm than good. You know if you are at the point where you are going to get zit gunk in your BRAIN you are going too far. Ha ha ha.
For getting worms out of your nose,wash your hands well and put cotton around your fingers first so you don’t get staph in there and cause zits.
I wish a dermatologist would join this board one day. She or he would be the most popular poster ever. This board LOVES their pores and the wonderous bounty contained therin. I have really noticed that.
How big of a problem is this really though? I mean, I could choke on a hotdog, but I continue to eat them anyway. Surely most people don’t have the knowledge you’ve just shared, yet have popped zits, pimples or whatever in that area and been just fine.
So how dangerous is that really?
Pokey, that sounds like an interesting read - does the book discuss PCOS and cycstic acne at all? I know that as an adult female I have PCOS and rather predictable times of when I’ll get acne based on what my hormones are doing …
I wonder as well. There seems to be one heck of a lot of zip popping going on on any given day, and I haven’t ever heard of anyone dieing from it.
I think we need to alert the media. Teens in trouble: are children a shooting pus into their brains!
Breaking Out may have, but I skimmed. It definitely discusses the different types of acne including cystic. But about 1/2 of the book covers things like treatments. I would say it is a good pick from the library, but probably not worth buying. The Beauty Bible I think is worth buying if you are interested in lots of aspects of cosmetics because it has a lot of hard facts and is handy to have around when your bullshit detector goes off, but only one chapter is about acne. I have read lots of books about acne but almost all of them were worthless. It seems like when it comes to cosmetic issues, people suspend all disbelief or something.
Like the thing about dying from popping a zit, I have heard that since I was a kid, it is my earliest urban myth. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but 
I don’t know what it is about zits that makes people lose all interest in the whole last 100 years of science and medicine. I have read smart people on this board talk about how if they get a deep zit they will put BACON on it and then lance it and then squeeze and poke it. It’s like they would buy leeches if they heard you could put them on a zit. It seems like any time there is a cosmetic element to something, all bets are off and voodoo becomes a totally reasonable healing practice. I admit that I have a theory that my zits are caused by noticing zits on other people. Because when I see a zit on someone’s face, I get a zit in the exact same place every time.
People spent a lot of time discovering that you should not rub weird things in your wounds or poke your wounds with items you found in the junk drawer or stick your dirty fingers in them, but I know we all do that to our zits. It’s madness. If you had another type of wound you would get no pleasure from screwing with it and making it MORE swollen and pus-filled and explosive.
I’m not saying I never pick at it but I think most people can recognize that secondary infection of a picked zit and know when to lay off the thing. If your face starts to turn red and you get a fever you should stop picking that zit and go to the hospital and maybe they can save you before the infection gets into your brain.
What I mean is if you die of zit picking I don’t think you were very good at life.
I think I’ll pick it up anyway - no matter what I do to my face, I get them, and I can tell (I temp to chart my cycle and ovulation) that it is tied to the estrogen upsurge leading up to ovulation (and false upsurges to aborted ovulation runups) … I Might get insight into adding something to my routine to minimise the effect of the stimulation.
Makes me wonder if laser treatment might be effective - I bet if I mapped the breakouts over a few years we could figure out what part of the face to kill off to prevent stimulation (example, I get one on my cheek in almost the same place every time, and a few on but more under my chin) in those areas.
Theoretically, of course, and in the name of research. I don’t think I’d really want to put a laser to myself or have it done.
getting a zit in your ear! :smack: … how do you get one there anyway? I mean, i know there’s skin there… but jeez… and they hurt like hell too 
Well, there’s either the risk of brain infection and a painful death, or no risk at all. It depends on how you look at it. It’s dangerous enough to be mentioned in medical textbooks. To the casual zit-popper this generally isn’t going to be a problem, but when you start getting into deep pustules with large volumes of fluid, that’s where it becomes really risky. Or infected cuts or lesions of other origin.
The main point is that there aren’t many potential routes of entry of bacteria to the brain, and this is one of them. The question is, do you feel lucky?
ACNE and stress:
You’re immune system is affected by stress. Failing to ward of bacteria or over reacting to bacteria can make outbreaks worse…so when under stress, the immune system can be affected, and your immune system plays a role in battling the bacteria that play a role in acne.
Even rashes can worsen or re-appear when one is under stress, because the immune response changes.
Inflamation can be even worse when the immune system over reacts. You want a nice level headed steady immune response to keep symptoms in-line. Stress hinders that.