Stye
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Also known as hordeolum or chalazion, stye refers to minor, short-term bacterial illnesses that affect the edge of one's eye, clogging the glands around the eyelid thereby making it swollen with sores like pimples or boils. The sore causes pain in the eye and temporarily becomes filled with pus. This condition may worsen and develop deeper inside the eyelid making it swell until it requires the attention of a general practitioner.
Signs and symptoms
From the onset, stye manifests itself through small, yellowish spot at the centre of the bump that develops as pus expanding in the area, a lump at the bottom or top of the eyelid. This comes with some restricted swelling and pain of the same eyelid, redness, tenderness, crusting in the margins of the eyelid, burning, droopiness of the eyelid, itching, blurred vision, mucous discharge, irritation, tearing, light sensitivity, feeling of a foreign body in the eye and distress during blinking.
Risk factors
Your risk of eyelid infection increases if:
- You maintain poor hygiene. Chances are that you will touch your contact lenses without washing your hands, thus contaminating them and increasing your risk
- You do not disinfect your contact lenses prior to use
- You do not wash your makeup when not needed, especially before sleeping
- You use expired or old cosmetics. Usually mascaras have a short shelf-life (about 6 months) and can get contaminated easily
- You share your towels and soap with others – it is best to use liquid cleansers to avoid contamination
Causes
Styes are usually experienced by people of all ages though they are particularly frequent in teenagers. This condition may last for two weeks with no treatment or as little as four days if properly treated. It is therefore, necessary to avoid sharing things like face towels to prevent its spread between individuals. Triggers of stye include but not limited to sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, insufficient water, poor hygiene and rubbing of one's eyes.
Prevention
Proper hygiene is a key factor in stye prevention. To reduce the risks of developing styes and other infections in individuals, people should at all time practice proper hand washing. It is highly advisable not share cosmetic eye tools with other people, always keep the eye tools clean and practice general eye hygiene. Before one goes to sleep every night, it is recommended to remove makeup and dispose of contaminated ones. More importantly, avoid stress at all costs.
Treatment
The principal mode of treating stye is the application of warm compress, then the performance of incision and drainage. As a home remedy, one ought to gently cleanse the eyelid affected with stye with tap water and a shampoo in order to remove crusted discharge. A general practitioner may sometimes pierce a mainly unrelenting stye with a needle to speed up its draining. Consequently, he may also treat styes with specific antibiotics. Care must always be taken to cleanse the wound in order to prevent re-infection incase stye bursts; one should also not lance the stye to avoid infection and spread to surrounding areas. In addition, sufferers should avoid eye makeup, lotions and wearing of contact lenses as these may worsen the condition.
Complications
Common complications of stye are corneal irritation and cosmetic deformity that may require surgical removal, complications from improper surgical lancing and lid fistula. Too large styes may also interfere with one's vision. Besides, infection of the eyelid may result into eyelid cellulites which may permanently seal the eye due to the damage from infection.
References
https://www.medicinenet.com/sty_stye/article.htm
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001009.htm