Dr. Sandra Lee, the viral dermatologist known as Dr. Pimple Popper, has disclosed that she suffered a stroke last November while filming the upcoming second season of Lifetime’s “Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out,” halting production for two months.
In an exclusive interview with People, Dr. Lee, 55, said symptoms first appeared Nov. 20 while she was seeing patients at her Upland, California, practice. She initially mistook the sensation for something minor. “I had what I thought was a hot flash,” she said. “I got super sweaty and didn’t feel like myself.”
Her condition worsened that evening at her parents’ home, where she experienced shooting pains in one leg and difficulty walking. By the following morning, more alarming symptoms had emerged.
“I would hold my hand out, and it would just slowly collapse,” she said. “I noticed that I had a tough time articulating and just enunciating. I thought, ’Am I having a stroke?’”
Her father, also a dermatologist, urged her to go to the emergency room. An MRI confirmed she had suffered an ischemic stroke — a blockage in blood vessels supplying the brain that deprives cells of oxygen and nutrients. “What essentially happened is I had a part of my brain that died,” Dr. Lee said.
Dr. Lee’s neurologist, Dr. May Kim-Tenser of USC’s Keck Medical School, noted that high blood pressure is the leading risk factor for stroke and said physicians are seeing a roughly 15% rise in stroke prevalence among patients between ages 45 and 64.
Dr. Lee spent two months in physical and occupational therapy to recover balance and hand movement before returning to work in January. She said the experience left her with lasting anxiety.
“There’s a lot of PTSD because it happened while I was filming the show,” she said. Dr. Kim-Tenser said her patient was fortunate: “Her symptoms are pretty much resolved.”
Dr. Lee attributed her stroke in part to uncontrolled blood pressure, high cholesterol and the stress of managing both her practice and the show. She is currently on blood thinners and continuing physical therapy. She also expressed hope that speaking publicly about her experience would help reduce stigma, particularly in Asian communities. “In Asian cultures in particular they don’t tell people they’ve had a stroke because it can be seen as a sign of weakness,” she said.
The second season of “Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out” premieres Monday on Lifetime.
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