Here’s Why You Should Never Pop A Pimple On Your Nose

A TikTok with 3.6 million views posted by Dr. Ever Arias, a resident doctor at UCI Medical Center, went viral last year, scaring everyone about what can happen if you pop a pimple on your nose.

The TikTok video shows an AI depiction of a girl telling her personal story of squeezing a pimple that was bothering her, which caused a bacterial infection and eventually killed her. Arias reacts in a video alongside, noting that you should not touch pimples on a part of your face called “the triangle of death.”

Dr. Muneeb Shah, a board-certified dermatologist, also reacted to the story on TikTok, saying in the caption, “This is possible but incredibly rare.”

The AI video appears to be based on a true story about an 18-year-old who died in June in Santa Catarina, Brazil. But it got us wondering ― how much should we worry about this? So we asked dermatologists.

“The triangle of death” that Arias refers to in the TikTok video refers to the nasolabial triangle, which extends from the bridge of your nose down to your upper lip — a place where breakouts, including pimples and blackheads, commonly occur. It’s also an area where large and vital arteries and nervesrun from your neck to your sinuses and up to the skull.

Although tempting, popping pimples on this part of your face can cause serious conditions , including nasal infections, vision loss, stroke and even death — so you are better off waiting for any pimples to go away on their own.

“If you pick your face with dirty fingers, dirty nails or have dirty skin, you run the risk of causing a skin infection,” said Dr. Joshua Zeichner, the director of cosmetic and clinical research at the Department of Dermatology at Mount Sinai in New York.

“In the central face, this is