ICONIC TV dermatologist Sandra Lee was rushed to the hospital after suffering a stroke on set, the star has revealed.
Better known as Dr. Pimple Popper, Sandra has broken her silence on the terrifying health crisis.
The TV personality led the cult-favorite reality show, Dr. Pimple Popper, which filmed her often gruesome dermatological procedures from blackhead extractions to the removal of severe skin growths.
After a massively popular eight-season run on TLC, beginning in 2018, Sandra now leads the Lifetime spin-off, Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out, which she was filming when the stroke occurred in November.
“It happened while I was filming the show,” Sandra told People in an interview published on Tuesday.
“I had what I thought was a hot flash. I got super sweaty and didn’t feel like myself.”
After filming, she headed to her parents’ house.
There, her problems persisted – she felt a shooting pain in her leg and had a tough time walking down the stairs.
She noticed the symptoms were primarily affecting her left side.
“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?’”
Sandra’s dad, also a dermatologist, urged her to go to the emergency room.
She underwent an MRI and learned that she had suffered from an ischemic stroke.
“What essentially happened is I had a part of my brain that died,” Sandra said.
After the incident, Sandra paused all filming for two months and went into recovery.
This is the franchise’s first known production hiatus since its original series premiered on TLC nearly a decade ago.
She underwent physical therapy for “very basic things,” she said.
“I don’t like that I don’t have total control of my left hand or the grip wasn’t as strong,” she continued.
“If I feel like I’m not at my best—it’s very scary.”
She resumed filming in January, but worried about performing more intricate surgeries.
“There’s a lot of PTSD because it happened while I was filming the show,” Sandra said.
The dermatologist added that thanks to support from her staff, she was able to manage her caseload as the symptoms resolved themselves.
She said she’s opening up about her health scare to ease the stigma around strokes.
“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,” Sandra said.
“I want to get the word out that if you have symptoms like I had, make sure you see your doctor. Take care of yourself.”
Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out returns for Season 2 on Monday at 9:00pm on Lifetime.
