Stye

How Long Could I Wait, if I Could Wait?

Ideally, the specialist should be located in the shortest possible time since eye injuries are often painful and annoying. However, some conditions are more urgent than others. Below you can see the waiting times for some of the most common eye injuries.

TYPE OF INJURY WAITING TIME

• Burns, especially with chemical agents It should be treated as soon as possible. You can only wait half an hour after the injury.

• Penetrating globe injury • Foreign bodies • Eyelid lacerations

• Orbital fractures • Conjunctival hemorrhages It should be treated the same day as the injury. You can wait few hours.

These can wait up to 48 hours.

In the case of an eye lesion, the best home treatment is to keep the eye covered with a patch, which can be done with gauze, and to go to the specialist in due course, depending on the type of injury.

A stye, or hordeolum, is a pimple along the line of the eyelashes. It is usually filled with pus, becomes very swollen, and can cause pain. It can be found on the outside of the eye or inside the eyelid.

Its location does not determine its aggressiveness. In fact, these types of injuries are quite benign.

Treatment

Sties are self-limiting. They rarely get complicated and need to be drained. There are still some things we can do, however, to relieve the inflammation and speed up the healing process. Taking an anti-inflammatory or pain reliever may help with the pain. Placing compresses with water or warm solution also improves inflammation. In my country, it is said that heating a spoon and pressing it on the stye is the ultimate cure for this disease. Strangely enough, it works. The combination of pressure and heat on the injury improves the symptoms quite a lot.

Imrankabirhossain, Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0