Like the shock films you watched in Driver's Ed, Sandra Lee, MD’s (a.k.a. Dr. Pimple Popper's) dermatological videos are educational, but gruesome. And, along with 1.6 million other people, we can’t stop watching them. The subject of her latest video has what appears to be a cyst on his shoulder that's about the size of a peanut M&M. Pretty straightforward stuff for the famous zit-blasting derm. Or not.
Dr. Lee starts by making a 1.5-by-.5-inch incision to release the epidermal cyst, which she describes as “a benign growth” that’s very common and results from “the reproduction of epidermal cells within a confined space of the dermis.” And then, things take a turn for the surgical.
See, beneath that seemingly harmless, candy-sized lump is a mass of wet skin cells, which turn into a white, cottage-cheesy consistency when trapped under the skin. And it can be a little rank. “It’s like toe jam,” she explains in the video. “It’s wet skin that’s sitting there — it's going to start to smell bad.” What’s more, in certain situations, the release of the stuff can be, uh, kind of messy: “We’ve gotten it on the wall before. It’s not cool when you don’t have a splash mask on.” Understatement of the year.
But this particular lump won’t go flying — because the base of the cyst has roots. Deep roots. After a long dive way deep under the skin, Dr. Lee removes what looks like white gunk in the form of a shrimp. As in, it was hooked in there hard. Watch the video to see it all go down, from the initial incision to the final stitch. Hey, we warned you this was surgical.
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