Tell me my face will heal fine?

March 5, 2008 8:09 PM

HELP! I HAVE A HOLE IN MY FACE

A nasty pimple had developed on my cheek. In squeezing it, I ended up messing up my skin so that it scarred over the pimple. Ignoring what I knew I shouldn't do, I kept picking at it. Now I have a HOLE and I'm scared that it will turn into a crater or something worse. I've never had a crater- all my past pimples have healed fine. Please tell me - is this one going to leave a permanent indent in my face?? What can I do??

Gross picture here.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (20 answers total)

I'm no dermatologist, but I think it looks like you might get a little crater scar from that. Quit picking it, and keep it moist while it heals. I'd use something oil-based, like polysporin. Even concealer is probably OK- you don't want the scab to get so dry it falls off before the skin beneath it has time to fill in. At least it's on the side of your face not the front- it probably won't be that bad, and the rest of your skin looks pretty good, so if it does crater, people will just think it's an isolated chicken pox.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 8:13 PM on March 5, 2008

Eh, not that terrible. From personal extensive hole-in-face experience: you might have a tiny scar, but it's likely to be just a purplish mark that will eventually fade, not a big dent.

Cover it if you're tempted to pick, and like pseudo says, keep moist. Vitamin E oil is also great.
posted by hippugeek at 8:19 PM on March 5, 2008

Your face will heal fine. The only scars I have are from chicken pox, and that was a completely different beast from this type of thing.
Don't pick (put cream on it, if only to stop yourself from touching it), and you'll see improvement in 24 hours (really!).

Don't worry! Having pimples like this sucks but it will be OK. They heal.
posted by olya at 8:31 PM on March 5, 2008

Quit touching it. Put Neosporin (or generic equivalent triple antibiotic ointment) on it—petroleum jelly in that keeps it moist, the antibiotics keep it uninfected. Do this 24/7 until it heals if you can; otherwise just do it at night until it heals.

(I'm a habitual, compulsive skin-picker. I've had a lot of experience with this. It'll probably heal just fine.)
posted by limeonaire at 8:33 PM on March 5, 2008

sweetmotherjesusfuckingcanarybird that's a nasty zit aftermath.

I would recommend that you
a) never touch it with your grody fingers again. (no offense, all our fingers are grody.)
b) buy a big bottle of contact lens rinse---just the straight saline kind
c) squirt about 10 seconds of that directly into it as hard as you can for about 10 seconds after you shower and remove the bandaid you're going to put on it, every time you do either.
d) immediately after rinsing it put in an antibacterial like neosporin or generic equivelent
e) cover and DO NOT TOUCH IT.

Also, did I mention not to touch it? The nice thing about faces is that they tend to stay pretty clean and heal up pretty fast.
posted by TomMelee at 8:41 PM on March 5, 2008

Not meaning to cause alarm here, but that's exactly the way a MRSA (not mine in the picture) infection that I had looked. Same gaping hole, same peeling skin around the edges. I think you might want to visit the doctor, and especially do so if you get another one of these.
posted by chiababe at 9:02 PM on March 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Eh. I pick at pimples and subsequent scars compulsively. I tend to break out when I'm ultra stressed, I get fidgety when I'm stressed, and I get stressed a lot. My face looks terrible. That said, I have had 'craters' worse than yours and they've healed up fine. The darker, purplish area takes a few more months to fade, but other than that, no worries.
posted by Phire at 9:10 PM on March 5, 2008

Throw some polysporin on that and forget about it. It will take a while to fully heal, but it will probably go away almost completely.

I used to be a habitual picker, and the only serious scar on my face is from an old nose piercing.
posted by padraigin at 9:41 PM on March 5, 2008

For future pimples, if you must squeeze, cover your fingers with folded-over tissue paper first. You can press harder without scratching (and thus be more thorough in expelling the pus) and you keep your fingernail germs away from your zit. Then use some benzoyl peroxide on the zit.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:42 PM on March 5, 2008

you need to soak this in warm water. the more you do that, the better it will heal. Put a clean rag under running warm to hot water, and apply to that thing. Keep it on there, warm, for 5 minutes at a time. do that three times a day.
That's what to do.
posted by alkupe at 9:45 PM on March 5, 2008

also, i recommend not taking advice from "habitual pickers".
posted by alkupe at 9:47 PM on March 5, 2008

Well, I'm a FORMER habitual picker, and now I'm a 33 year old woman with pretty great skin, so I hope the asker doesn't totally discount my advice.

I'm also a big fan of these babies for those gotta-squeeze-it moments. Changes everything, aftermath-wise.
posted by padraigin at 10:47 PM on March 5, 2008

Yes, the key is to keep it moist. It's a myth that a wound heals best when it dries out. You get a scar from a scab. No scab, no scar.
posted by wsg at 11:54 PM on March 5, 2008

Chill out and stop picking. This is nothing. It will heal with or without Neosporin.
posted by Krrrlson at 12:33 AM on March 6, 2008

Yes, the key is to keep it moist. It's a myth that a wound heals best when it dries out. You get a scar from a scab. No scab, no scar.
posted by wsg at 2:54 AM on March 6 [+] [!]

I don't mean to pick a fight, wsg; I am genuinely confused about this statement as it more or less defies everything I learned (or maybe not) about the immune system in High School. How then does the skin gets repaired if the fibrin isn't allowed to stop the bleeding and repair the damaged vessels? Or am I totally off?
posted by Phire at 2:26 AM on March 6, 2008

Phire, just as a thought--injuries in your mouth heal, right? That's not only very wet, but very very bacteria-ridden to boot. Scab-things can form in moist-wet environments fine. They just don't dry out and shrink and pull at the skin.
posted by that girl at 5:51 AM on March 6, 2008

Use some vitamin E oil as well. Go out and buy a new thing of it, so that you know it's clean.

There's a difference between letting something scab over, and letting it get overly dry. Like any other skin, scabbed-over skin wants decent moisture.
posted by explosion at 6:06 AM on March 6, 2008

Ugh, alkupe. When I say I'm a habitual, compulsive skin picker, it's like going to an AA meeting and saying, "I'm an alcoholic." I have my picking pretty well under control, but that doesn't mean the tendencies don't remain. And because of those tendencies, I have pretty extensive experience with watching picked-open things heal.
posted by limeonaire at 7:00 AM on March 6, 2008

Phire,

I don't know how it works, but it does. There have been many discussions here at askmefi on this topic and the final outcome is always "keep it moist and covered." Allowing it to breathe does not help and actually slows the healing process.
posted by wsg at 7:11 AM on March 6, 2008

I've gotten those and I just slather on some neosporin. With the really bad ones I make a tiny bandaid cut from the big ones with a bit of neosporin. I don't get these sort of bag pimples anymore and there are no traces of the old ones.
posted by melissam at 8:23 AM on March 6, 2008