{"id":348878,"date":"2025-08-16T10:10:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/348878\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T10:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:10:15","slug":"woman-hospitalised-after-popping-spot-in-her-triangle-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/348878\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman hospitalised after popping spot in her ‘triangle of death’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alisha was prescribed four different drugs in a bid to keep the swelling downNeil Shaw<\/strong><\/a> Assistant Editor (Money and Lifestyle)<\/p>\n

08:03, 16 Aug 2025<\/p>\n

\"AlishaAlisha after popping the spot (Jam Press)<\/p>\n

A woman who popped a pimple in the little-known \u2018triangle of death\u2019 area on her face was rushed to hospital after she became dizzy and was left in \u201cexcruciating\u201d pain. Alisha Monaco had no idea it was dangerous to pop a spot in the \u2018danger triangle\u2019 \u2013 an area between the corners of the mouth and the bridge of the nose.<\/p>\n

Due to its connection to the cavernous sinus, a region in the brain, picking or squeezing pimples can lead to serious infections. The 32-year-old, who detailed the incident in a TikTok which garnered 7.8 million views, said it appeared to be an \u201caverage\u201d pimple, which she is prone to getting several times a month.<\/p>\n

After failing to pop it, she poked it with a sanitised pimple popper needle tool and her ear popped at the same time, leading her to become dizzy immediately. \u201cI knew I\u2019d messed up,\u201d the 32-year-old said. \u201cThe pain was all on the right bottom side of my nostril, down to my lip and even up the side of my face.<\/p>\n

\"Alisha'sAlisha’s face after she went to hospital (Jam Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cI woke up four or five hours later in excruciating pain on my right side of my face. The whole right side of my face was swollen, my smile was crooked and my ear felt clogged on the right side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was brutal. I was in so much pain just trying to smile\/talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mum-of-three called her husband to come home to be with the children in the morning while she went to hospital. Alisha said: \u201cThe urgent care staff was extremely kind to me and make a point to not let me feel embarrassed about being at the urgent care for popping a pimple.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were happy I came in because the swelling was so bad. I needed to get it treated immediately because the risk of infection in that location is dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlishaAlisha instantly felt pain and dizziness (Jam Press)<\/p>\n

Alisha was given four prescription medications to keep her symptoms at bay \u2013 as well as the chance of infection spreading \u2013 and was allowed to leave hospital. Thankfully, she has been recovering well at home since \u2013 but took to TikTok to share the dangers, having previously heard about the \u2018triangle of death\u2019 zone there.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI had a feeling after I popped the pimple that I needed to look it back up on TikTok to double check and sure enough my pimple was right in the triangle of death area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI [then] just wanted to warn others to learn from my experience. I don’t have a huge following on social media so I had no idea that it was going to go so viral, but from reading the comments of all the people who weren’t aware that the triangle of death was a thing, I\u2019m glad I did.<\/p>\n

\"AlishaAlisha after popping the spot (Jam Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cNow everyone can see what happened to me and hopefully they will just put a pimple patch on and leave that area alone!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dermatologist Alok Vij<\/a> said: “Think of this small segment of your face as a direct line to your brain. That\u2019s thanks to your cavernous sinus, a network of large veins located behind your eye sockets. Through this sinus, blood drains from your brain. An infection in the danger triangle \u2014 like from a picked pimple, or a nose piercing<\/a> gone wrong \u2014 has a small but not impossible chance of traveling from your face right to your brain, without much distance to cover between them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is the possibility for a facial infection to become an infection that impacts the rest of your body.”<\/p>\n

Dr Vij added: \u201cThankfully, it\u2019s relatively unlikely, but whenever there\u2019s a violation of the skin and interaction with bacteria, there\u2019s always a possibility for infection, which can lead to greater health concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alisha was prescribed four different drugs in a bid to keep the swelling downNeil Shaw Assistant Editor (Money…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,2207,1939,74700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-348878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-hospitals","10":"tag-prescriptions","11":"tag-skin","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115037905278586459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}