Dr. Sandra Lee, the famous Reality-TV dermatologist known as Dr. Pimple Popper, is opening up about one of the scariest moments of her life. The star revealed that she suffered a stroke while filming the new season of her hit show — and she is now sharing her full story with the public for the very first time.
Lee, 55, told PEOPLE magazine that the scary moment happened on November 20 last year. She was working at her Upland, California, practice, filming episodes of Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out on Lifetime, when she first noticed something was wrong.
“I had what I thought was a hot flash,” she told the magazine. “I got super sweaty and didn’t feel like myself.”
That night, she felt shooting pains in one leg and had trouble sleeping. The next morning, things got worse. Her left hand would not stay steady, and she had difficulty speaking clearly. That’s when she asked herself — could this be a stroke?
Her father, also a dermatologist, told her to go to the emergency room right away. Doctors ran an MRI and confirmed she had suffered an ischemic stroke — a condition where blocked blood vessels cut off oxygen to the brain.
“What essentially happened is I had a part of my brain that died,” Lee said.
She immediately stopped filming and spent the next two months in physical and occupational therapy. She worked hard to regain her balance and the strength in her hands — tools she relies on every day as a surgeon.
Her neurologist, Dr. May Kim-Tenser of USC’s Keck Medical School, said Lee was lucky. Most of her symptoms have since cleared up.
Lee returned to work in January and admits it was not easy. “There’s a lot of PTSD because it happened while I was filming the show,” she said. But with help from her staff and a fellow dermatology colleague, she pushed through.
She is currently on blood thinners and still doing therapy at home. She is also using her story to spread awareness, especially in Asian communities, where strokes are often kept private out of fear of judgment.
“I want to get the word out,” she said. “If you have symptoms like I had, make sure you see your doctor.”
The new season of Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out premieres on April 20 on Lifetime.
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