What the hell is this thing on my eyelid?

December 22, 2014 8:24 AM

Seriously, what the hell is this thing on my eyelid? (Not gross, not disturbing, boring looking eyelid bump shown.)

I understand you are not my doctor. Know what my doctor said? "See a specialist." So I did.

Want to know what the specialist said? "Wow, what is that thing? Let's poke it."

And she did. Watery stuff came out and the bump went away for a few months. Then it came back, larger. It's been growing back for a year now.

It looks kind of like a pimple, but it is not painful. It does not hurt when I touch it. It is full of watery stuff, not pus, though it was the doctor who was able to get that out of it, with local numbing and a sterile needle. Poking/prodding at home does nothing, gets nothing out of it. The opthalmologist was quite certain it was not a stye.

I'm more than willing to go see a specialist again, but I'd like to have some ideas I could steer the conversation with.

Anyone have one of these or know someone who had?

posted by DirtyOldTown to Health & Fitness (14 answers total)

Best answer: Is it a Chalazion?

My uncle used to get them frequently, it became an issue as his dementia worsened. When all treatments made him agitated especially anything that involved his eyes his doctors stopped treating them and they were just unsightly, but otherwise didn't seem to bother him.
posted by readery at 8:32 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I thought of a chalazion also. I've had blepharitis in the past and developed a chalazion as a result. My eye doctor recommended hot compresses (as hot as you can stand) several times a day as well as an ointment, the name of which I've forgotten (sorry).

Another eye doctor recommended washing eyebrows and eyelashes daily with baby shampoo as a remedy for the blepharitis.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:36 AM on December 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Might be a Chalazion.

I get them occasionally. They usually go away on their own, but one time one didn't. Stop reading now if you don't want to be horrified.

So yeah, it didn't go away so I got referred to an eye specialist. She tried a few creams, had me soak it a couple of times a day, nothing. It was still there and it was bugging me and actually compressing my eyeball a bit so it started affecting my vision.

Since it was mostly under they eyelid she decided she had to drain it from underneath. So...

She put me in a chair and folded my lid back. Yeah, just like that one weird kid in elementary school used to do. Only she taped it back. She taped the back of my eyelid to my forehead!

Then she got out a scalpel. Maybe she put some cream or iodine on my lid, I don't remember.

So now my eyelid is clipped back and I can't NOT LOOK as she comes at my FREAKING EYE with a SCALPEL. So I'm forced to watch as she cuts the underside of my eyelid and drains the bump.

Then she put some cream on it and made a patch with a giant piece of gauze and on the train ride home I became one of those people that other people pretend they're not staring at.

In a couple of days, all was well. I hope I never have to go through that again.

It didn't hurt, it was just the fact that I couldn't not watch it. If you're the type who thinks that might be cool then it won't be bad at all.

But keep soaking it with a hot cloth and it might go away on its own.

Good luck.
posted by bondcliff at 8:37 AM on December 22, 2014 [9 favorites]

Best answer: Thirding a chalazion. I got one once too - I'm prone to cysts in general (pimples, breast lumps, a crazy ovarian cyst, styes, etc.) and I just chalked it up to that.

It went away on its own after a month or so. For a while the only lingering aftereffect was a sort of small wrinkle where it had previously been, which I chalked up to "the skin got a little stretched for a while". My eyesight wasn't compromised either while I had it or at any point after, it wasn't painful, my eyes themselves never got any kind of infection.

Yours hanging around for a year is a bit on the unusual side, but I suspect that's what's going on.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:47 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If it's a chalazion, frequent warm compresses help a lot, especially if you warm up the wet washcloth in the microwave.
posted by trillian at 9:01 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My vote goes to chalazion as well. I used to get them frequently. To make it go away, hot compress on your eye at least 4 times a day (I use hot tap water). After the compress, I press gently the eye lid toward the chalazion. It might take a few weeks to go away.

To prevent it from coming back: avoid stress (I know...), wash your eye lids/eye lashes with baby shampoo while in the shower, wash your pillow case every week and start the compresses again as soon as you feel a new chalazion developping. And avoid eye liner and mascara (if you're a make-up wearing type of person).
posted by domi_p at 10:27 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It does look like a chalazion. I treated mine myself very successfully. It was about the same size as yours, but in the crease of my lid, and had been there for at least a year, almost imperceptibly growing, until I realized I had this big thing on my eyelid. I had a sample size ($5.00) of this Paula's Choice BHA 9 serum. Used a tiny drop (like what you'd get on the point of a toothpick) of that twice a day for a week or so and kept checking the thing in a 10x magnifying mirror. When the plug became more visible, then I used a hot compress for about 20 minutes and squeezed. Prepare to be horrified at the amount of gunk trapped in there. That was a year ago and it hasn't come back. You'll want to be very careful with the serum since it's so close to the edge of your lid, but if you use a toothpick and get the tiniest dot just on where you think the plug is, you should be okay.
posted by HotToddy at 11:29 AM on December 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

Maybe an ingrown eyelash?
posted by Mr. Yuck at 11:42 AM on December 22, 2014

Best answer: The difference between chelazion and styes.
posted by lois1950 at 11:56 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Another idea: cholesterol deposit (Scroll down for photo). It's pretty common.
posted by carmicha at 1:58 PM on December 22, 2014

I just returned from the doctor's this morning, having seen him for something similar. He said it was a chalazion, and I got prescribed a terramycin ointment and ciloxan eye drops, with strict instructions not to go swimming. Hot compresses help too. /notamedicalprofessional
posted by hellopanda at 8:11 PM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

If it's a chalazion, and I agree it might be, there's next to no chance that the ophthalmologist you saw did not know what it was (unless they were not actually an ophthalmologist or a doctor or something). Chalazion is not exactly an obscure condition, aside from a stye it's the most common thing that causes bumps on eyelids, and it certainly doesn't take an ophthalmologist to diagnose one - ophthalmologists have done a minimum of 4 years of post-medical school training, with a minimum of 3 years ONLY on eye issues, and it's one of the most competitive medical specialties that generally takes the cream of the crop, smarts-wise. So…. this makes me suspect that either you didn't get good communication from the ophthalmologist about what the final diagnosis was last time, or there is more to the story on this eyelid bump than what we can tell from your story and the photo.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:44 PM on December 22, 2014

Had one once, that lasted for EVER (years? maybe). I got annoyed one day, poked it with a needle, and squeezed hard until a hard pellet popped out - basically the trapped oil had hardened. Boom, done, never to return.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:50 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yup, it was a chalazion. My partner recommended I take a warm, soaked chamomile tea compress and hold it to to my eyelid. After a few applications, there was a tiny dot on it that I lanced. Several large drops of oil came out and then the thing went away. I've been washing my eyelids with baby shampoo since to prevent a recurrence.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:26 PM on January 22, 2015 [1 favorite]