A few weeks ago my upper (and lower) eyelid had swelled up and become quite painful. I finally had it checked out and the doctor told me it was a stye. He gave me some antibiotic drops and said in a few days in will come to a head and go away. Well after a few (painful) days I noticed what looked like am extremely tiny whitehead on my eyelid (close enough to my eye that it was touching it all day) and then about a day later the same thing happened on the bottom. Anyways I thought that was an odd coincidence to have two at the same time, but I figured they were all part of the same thing since the whole thing was swollen. Anyways, that was a few weeks ago and now I can feel one starting on my other eye. I started using the drops right away, but does anyone know what causes these?? Or how to get rid of them before they get really painful??
It’s a virus. I had this happen a few years ago - 3 in one eye, 2 in the other. I believe the term my opthamologist used was Chilesian (sp?) Cysts.
You should keep warm compresses on your eyes as much as possible. (This is obviously difficult while you’re at work!) This will help them to drain.
Eventually most of them will just go away, or shrink down to a tiny hard bump. I had two that wouldn’t go away and had to have surgery to have them removed. It’s easy surgery - local anesthesia, in and out in about an hour. But it is rather traumatic because they’re working on your EYE!
Keep using your antibiotic drops (though I doubt that they’ll do anything), but definitely do the warm compresses as much as possible. If your doctor didn’t mention this, give him/her a call and make sure it’s OK first.
He did mention the warm compress. Also he said he would only give me drops if he had any samples. Since he thought they probably wouldn’t make a difference he wasn’t going to write a prescription and make me spend more money.
You’d think that I’d have something useful to add to this thread, but I don’t. Sorry.
Warning! Scary Stuff Ahead!
I had a sty a few years ago that I played with a little - they’re very annoying - and it would not go away. After several weeks I saw a doctor, who referred by to an Opthalmologist.
He said that the infection was quite deep, and that he would have to cut it out. Now, eyes are quite important to me, so I was not too happy with this. The alternative, he said, was worse - the infection would continue for a while and leave behind lumps of quite hard scar tissue. On we went.
He applied some sort of forceps to my eyelid. Instead of straight tips, like tweezers, the forceps had a ring at the end, in the centre of which he placed the sty. So that he could work on it, he had to “peel” my eyelid back over my eye, and the weight of the forceps held it down.
Therefore unable to blink, I had to sit and watch as he brought the scalpel up to my eye - brrrr, I still shiver when I remember that - and cut the thing away. It took all the strength I could summon not to scream and run away - for me it was terrifying.
The total procedure took about 10 minutes, but it seemed much longer. When I asked what I could have done to prevent this, he replied that there was really nothing that could be done. It was just my bad luck that this sty was so badly infected. These days, I try not to touch my eyes or eyelids at all.
(I’m sure that yours isn’t this bad Joey P.)
Are you sure that it’s a stye (edge of eyelid) or could it be a chalazion (within the main part of the eyelid)? I have a chalazion as we speak. If you think that you have a chalazion, I can give you more details.
Oh, what the heck, I’ll go ahead in case your doctor was being sloppy with his terminology.
A chalazion is caused by a blockage of the meibomian glands. They are usually sterile although occasionally a secondary infection can occur. They may go away on their own in approxiamtely two weeks. You can try the warm compresses four times a day and try massaging the bump to try to loosen up the blockage.
In my case, I have gotten a few of these in the past (years ago) and my opthamalogist told me that they wouldn’t go away by themselves so I had to have them surgically removed. Which is no big deal, except in my case the epinephrine (I think) that he injected in addition to the anesthetic caused a pretty bad black eye which didn’t look very good and was pretty persistant. That is not a normal reaction though.
Since then I occasionally get one in the same spot which I wake up with but it only lasts a day or two. Unfortunately, I got a new one in a different spot that is not going away yet but it’s only been a few days so I’m going to keep hoping it will resolve itself.
N.B. IANAD
Well Marcus, I was trying not to scare Joey P, but you’re right, it’s the most awful 10 minutes I’ve ever encountered, even with the Valium.
rsa, thanks for providing the correct spelling.