Table Of ContentDedication
This book is dedicated to those I’m most dedicated to:
my two boys, Chance and Stratton,
and my husband, Jeff.
Love you three to the moon and back.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction: Girl Meets Pimple
Chapter 1: Dr. Pimple Popper 101
Chapter 2: Thanks for Popping In!
Chapter 3: Acne: An Issue for the Ages
Chapter 4: Time Won’t Tell
Chapter 5: Prescription for Beauty
Chapter 6: Sack the Lies, Hack the Truth
Conclusion: I’m Not Hurting You, Right?
Acknowledgments
BDD and BFRB Resources
Notes
Index
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Girl Meets Pimple
YOU KNOW THOSE TIMES WHEN—BING!—YOUR EYES JUST POP OPEN WITH some
profound realization you had overlooked before? For me, it was just past three
o’clock in the morning when I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. “What did I
do yesterday?” I thought to myself. Did I really just start a GoFundMe page for
one of my patients, whom I affectionately call Pops, without asking his
permission? The day before, I had posted a video on my YouTube channel, Dr.
Sandra Lee (also known as Dr. Pimple Popper), of some amazing blackhead
extractions I had done on Pops. Blackheads, which are open comedones, are like
snowflakes: each one is an individual; they are so satisfyingly unpredictable.
Sometimes you squeeze one and get the most amazing pop: you never know if it
will sputter out with a little light pressure from my comedone extractor or if it
will slide out smoothly. Pops’s blackheads were no different, and removing them
had been an ongoing journey for us, since he had so many of them.
I have to back up a bit here for those of you who are not avid “popaholics,”
as I like to call them. The story of how I came to be Dr. Pimple Popper was
unexpected—kind of a happy accident that I noticed and seized upon, and Pops
has a lot to do with it. I have been a board-certified dermatologist in private
practice for more than a decade, specializing in skin cancer and cosmetic surgery
and reconstruction and laser surgery. You may wonder, aren’t extractions
something a dermatologist does regularly? Isn’t this what a dermatologist is
supposed to do? It’s not that dermatologists aren’t capable of “pimple
popping”—that is, extracting blackheads, whiteheads, and milia, and surgically
excising cysts. It’s that this is such a small part of what our profession is about.
We are experts who deal with all medical conditions of the skin, hair, and nails.
And believe you me, there are so many!
In 2014 I had started an Instagram account, @DrSandraLee, intending to
showcase my life as a dermatologist—to educate people on the many facets of
my profession. Instagram is flush with gorgeous filtered images: mouthwatering
pictures of food, exotic places traveled, and beautiful do-it-yourself makeup, hair
coloring, and styling tutorials. I saw a quickly increasing popularity among
makeup and hair gurus, as well as a growing interest in spa treatments and
cosmetic treatments. Would these same people, and others, be interested to see
what I do day-to-day, as well? Hmm . . .
One day Pops came in for a regular appointment, but something was
different. For years, I had seen him as one half of a whole, or what I lovingly call
a “package deal,” meaning that he and his wife came together. Always. Except
this time, his wife wasn’t with him. I knew she had been ill; recently, she had
taken to waiting in the car during his appointments, not feeling up to coming into
the office. I couldn’t help but ask how she was doing, and instantly regretted
doing so.
“She’s gone.” Pops choked back tears and looked down at his hands. She’d
been his whole life. She ran the show. And now he was lost without her. I
noticed that his clothes weren’t as neatly pressed as they usually were, he had a
stain on his slacks, and his hair appeared a little more disheveled. Nothing I do
can take away a person’s emotional anguish, but I wish I could have waved a
magic wand and made some of that pain and sadness disappear. Opening a
GoFundMe page in his name was an impulse move—a result of my learning
about his economic hardships and overwhelming grief since his wife had passed
away. People who watched my videos from around the world sent the kindest
messages of hope and love to Pops and donated money to help someone whose
face they’d never seen! They’d just heard his story and knew every blackhead
extracted from him by heart! My popaholic fans are amazing: we ended up
exceeding the $5,000 goal and raised more than $14,000 for Pops!
Pops and his wife had been my patients for many years, but in all that time, I
was examining his skin and mainly treating and controlling his precancerous
skin lesions and skin cancers (non-life-threatening but locally destructive
squamous cell carcinomas and basal cell carcinomas). It actually took the
unfortunate passing of his dear wife for me to bring up the fact that those bumps
on his nose were benign blackheads and whiteheads. It wasn’t until this point
that he confided that he knew they weren’t dangerous, but he absolutely detested
them. Not because he could see them; his eyesight was failing and he couldn’t.
But because he could feel them, and he couldn’t get rid of them himself, and
they made him feel ugly and ashamed.
Pops after he was surprised with more than $14,000
from his fans around the world.
So I asked him, “Would you like me to extract as many of these as I can?
This is a procedure I can’t bill to insurance, but if you allow me to film the
procedure for others to watch, I won’t charge you.” He immediately agreed, very
happy that I was going to take care of them. This surprised me. I had never
offered this service to my patients in the past because, as a dermatologist, I avoid
extractions that aren’t medically necessary, as health insurance doesn’t cover
them. Patients normally have to pay out of pocket for these “cosmetic”
procedures, and they can be very expensive because they are time consuming.
Just a couple of months prior to this, I had posted a video on Instagram of me
extracting a blackhead on the back. To my surprise and curiosity, there was a
noticeable increase in “likes” on this post and, subsequently, on any posts
involving “pimple popping.” In fact, my most popular Instagram posts were
simple blackhead extractions. Would followers be interested in other things that I
pop out of people’s skin? Yes! People were mildly interested in what it looked
like to administer Botox or treat a wart, or even to see what psoriasis looked like.
People seemed to get really excited, though, when I posted a milia extraction or
a blackhead squeeze. Once they saw that, they were hooked. I am talking about
unbridled enthusiasm. People who liked it loved and obsessed about it. People
who hated it detested it. Either way, they tagged their friends because they just
had to share. I had happened upon the discovery of a pretty substantial
demographic of popaholics.
No longer wanting to limit myself to fifteen-second clips on Instagram
(today the app lets you post one-minute clips, but back in the olden days—a
couple of years ago—fifteen seconds was its limit), I posted a full-length
pimple-popping video to my YouTube channel, a platform I had created and
originally used for TV appearances, and which was meant to appeal to a much
smaller fan base. What should I call this Instagram page and YouTube channel
that I would devote mainly to sharing things that I’m able to pop from the skin?
Well, I gave myself the moniker Dr. Pimple Popper, and things really erupted
from there.
People were demonstrating a substantial interest in an area of medicine that
usually doesn’t get much attention. My YouTube videos of Pops, his blackheads,
and his emotional progress after losing his wife have been viewed—get this—
more than sixty million times! As I write this, I have exceeded 2.5 billion total
views on my YouTube channel, with the vast majority of them coming since
2015. Because of this social media exposure, which I created in a very DIY
fashion, I went from being a private-practice physician to an international social
media personality and influencer, with beauty magazines and TV talk shows
seeking my expert opinion, and my social media pimple popping being featured
in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and New York magazine.
I’ve come to realize that it’s a shame most dermatologists don’t treat these
benign cosmetic conditions, because it’s very obvious to me that these “ugly”
bumps and embarrassing spots on our faces and bodies have so much to do with
how we feel about ourselves, and this, of course, affects every aspect of our
lives.
Blackheads on the back.
Now if I notice that one of my acne or skin cancer patients has a blackhead
or milium, I like to offer to extract it for free in exchange for permission to
videotape the procedure so I can post it on my social media. Happily, very few
people decline this offer. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn that they are
extremely grateful that I suggest it, making for win-win-win situations. My
patient gets rid of something that has been bothering them for some time, and at
no cost. Viewers of my YouTube channel, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and
Facebook page get to witness the glory and satisfaction of a good blackhead
extraction. Finally, for me it’s been an unexpected win, as I hadn’t realized how
very appreciative many of my patients would be after I removed a growth that
had been a source of embarrassment, shame, and even depression because other
physicians may have refused to remove it.
Milium on left upper eyelid.
I really have no simple clear concrete idea why people like to watch pimple
popping, but I certainly have some theories. For many, it’s akin to slowing down
and staring when driving past a car wreck, while for others, there is this feeling
of fright followed by euphoria and exhilaration, similar to riding a roller coaster
or watching a scary movie. And for those who keep coming back, there is
something hypnotic about watching a pop or a squeeze or even an incision; it’s
satisfying on a deep psychological level, perhaps because eliminating a blemish
of any kind offers a sense of closure, resolution, and accomplishment.
Ultimately, the reason I continue to do this, and why my viewership continues to
grow, is that watching pimple popping seems to make people happy. Can you
believe that? It’s fascinating to me and mind boggling at the same time.
How my life has changed since I started posting my work on social media. I
would have thought the private practice I share with my dermatologist husband,
Jeff Rebish, in a quiet suburb of Los Angeles would continue to grow gradually
over time and that my workdays would be filled with surgical and cosmetic
procedures: Mohs micrographic surgery (a technique to remove skin cancers),
Botox and fillers, acne treatment, eyelifts, liposuction, and lasers to treat brown
spots, red spots, and fine lines and wrinkles. A few years ago, I never would
have believed that I would be extracting thousands of blackheads, cysts, lipomas
—anything that pops from the skin. I have removed more blackheads, excised
more cysts, and popped out more lipomas in the last few years than I have during
my whole dermatology career before then—times a hundred!
Patient with benign cysts called
hidrocystomas around the eyes.
You can see why he would want
these removed even though it’s
not medically necessary.
I still do all the things a dermatologist does in private practice, but the other
day, before my first patient arrived, I filmed a segment with a British TV talk
show about how celebrities with acne get red-carpet ready. The next day, I talked
to an Australian morning radio show about what makes people obsessed with
popping pimples. A few days later, I answered questions about skin on Facebook
Live with a well-known American magazine. After that, I collaborated on a
video with a famous YouTube star from Amsterdam. And now I have a
television series on the TLC channel, named, appropriately, Dr. Pimple Popper.
