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A blemish isn’t worth potentially losing your life over.
Hope, a TikTok user known as @imlesbianflavored on the app, revealed to her followers that she contracted a staph [staphylococcus] infection after popping a zit on her face.
The mom from Louisiana shared the story in a video on TikTok, which has since amassed 2.1 million views and 154,900 likes.
She captioned the video, “This was worse than childbirth and I now have a fun little scar from it,” and warned her followers not to pop their pimples.”I will never pop another pimple on my face, not ever.”
Hope continued, explaining that she had popped a pimple right above her lip the night before the video was taken, then went to sleep and woke up to a swollen face.
“I went to the doctor — it’s staph,” she said. “I popped a pimple and it turned into a staph infection.”
She wrapped up the video with a warning: “Yeah, don’t pop your pimples.”
Many of Hope’s followers on TikTok noted in the comments of her video an additional warning to be cautious of the “triangle of death.”
According to dermatologist Dr. Mamina Turegano, the “triangle of death” is the section of the face from the bridge of your nose to the corners of your mouth, where a pimple should never be popped.
That’s because this area packs a lot of blood vessels that lead directly to your brain, and an infection in this region could provide an easy conduit for the bacteria to travel up into the noggin — and “cause some really bad symptoms, like stroke,” Turegano tells her 1.1 million followers on TikTok.
“Thankfully, getting a really bad infection is pretty rare but you may want to think twice before popping a pimple in this area,” the New Orleans-based doctor concluded.
Staph infections are caused by staphylococcus bacteria, germs that live on the skin or in the nose. But they can become a bigger problem — potentially even deadly — if the bacteria goes deeper into the body and enters the bloodstream, joints, bones, lungs or heart, according to Mayo Clinic.
Doctors typically treat staph infections with antibiotics, but there are also recommended precautions that lower the risk of getting a staph infection.
Mayo Clinic’s “commonsense” tips to avoid an infection include:
- Regularly wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds, especially before and after making food, before eating, after handling raw meat or poultry, after using the bathroom and after touching an animal.
- Cover and clean all wounds with sterile, dry bandages until they heal to keep bacteria from spreading. Pus from cuts, scrapes and sores often contains staph bacteria.
- Change your tampon frequently, as toxic shock syndrome is caused by staph bacteria. Change it every 4-8 hours, use the lowest absorbency you can and try to alternate with sanitary napkins when possible.
- Staph infections can spread onto objects, so don’t share personal items such as towels, sheets, razors, clothing and athletic equipment.
- Wash and dry sheets, beddings and clothing at the warmest recommended temperature on the items’ labels — though detergent is enough to make the items clean and safe to use if hot water is not recommended.
- Be careful when preparing food. Wash hands before handling food, refrigerate leftovers as soon as you can, wash down countertops and cutting boards with soap and water.