POPPING PIMPELS

Popping pimples seems like a good idea at the time. It’s quick, it’s satisfying, and it leaves you with a smooth surface. Problem solved, right? It might seem like it, but every day our acne specialists see the fallout from acne that’s been overzealously picked and popped. Most commonly, popping pimples will leave you with very dark or red spots (even scabs) in the area where you picked. These marks, called post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, can take months and even years to go away without chemical peels for acne scars. Picking too deep can even leave you with permanent pitted, “ice pick” scars that only laser treatments or plastic surgery can improve.

But the real problem with popping your pimples is not the appearance of the surface of your skin, but its affect on your acne overall. Squeezing a pimple damages the follicle wall deep inside your skin, encouraging further inflammation and breakouts in the picked area. You could get a cluster of pimples in the area where you popped, or the popped pimple could come back to haunt you again and again in the same place because the wall of that follicle has been compromised.

To get rid of a pimple, we recommend applying ice to the lesion for a few minutes twice a day in order to reduce redness and swelling, healing your pimple from the inside out. Or, schedule an acne treatment with us. The acne specialists at Face Reality can remove dead skin cells and oil from the follicle without breaking the follicle wall and spreading acne bacteria. Better yet, they can recommend the best acne medication for you so that you won’t break out in the first place.