Photo: Julian Hamilton/FilmMagic
Sandra Lee, the dermatologist better known as Dr. Pimple Popper, revealed in an interview with People on Tuesday that she had a stroke on the set of her reality show last November. Lee said the medical incident occurred while she was working on the second season of her Lifetime series Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out.
“I had what I thought was a hot flash,” Lee said. “I got super-sweaty and didn’t feel like myself.” After filming that day, Lee said she drove to her parents’ house, where her symptoms continued throughout the evening. “I just felt very restless,” she said. “In one leg, I kept feeling shooting pains.” After struggling to sleep, she got up during the night and said she realized she “was having a tough time walking down the stairs.” The next morning, it had become clear something was wrong with the left side of her body and her ability to speak. “I would hold my hand out, and it would just slowly collapse,” she recalled. “I noticed that I had a tough time articulating and just enunciating. I thought, Am I having a stroke?” It was at that point that her father, who’s also a dermatologist, told her she should go to the emergency room immediately.
At the hospital, Lee said she had an MRI, which revealed she’d had an ischemic stroke, during which blood flow to the brain is obstructed. “What essentially happened is I had a part of my brain that died,” she said.
Lee stopped filming the show and spent the next two months in physical and occupational therapy so that she could do “very basic things” again, like balancing. The impact of the stroke is still significant, she said, particularly when it comes to her hand dexterity. “I don’t like that I don’t have total control of my left hand or the grip wasn’t as strong,” she said. She still also struggles with slurred speech, which makes her feel “really embarrassed.” “I notice it right now that I don’t speak exactly the way I used to,” she said.
In January, Lee said she got back to work on her show. “Thankfully I’m pretty much back to normal,” she told People. “It really makes you realize how precious life is.”
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