What’s that thing on my eye?

When I noticed a pimply swelling on the fleshy bit of eyelid just below my upper lashes, I’m sorry to say I ignored it. Well, I spritzed it with antibacterial hypochlorous solution, prodded it a bit, then remembered I had a photo shoot the next day and left it alone lest I made it worse. After that, I was away from home for a couple of days and by the time I settled back at my desk I had to acknowledge that The Thing had morphed into an angry swollen lump further up my eyelid. I’ve had enough difficulty with dry eye disease this year to guess that an infection at the outlet of the meibomian glands, which supply tear film to the eye, had moved up to the top of the gland, got worse and… what?

So I asked Instagram what to do

“What’s this and what should I do?” I posted on Instagram.

“Alice, you have an infected chalazion and professional medical help is the best route,” said SB, a former Moorfields anaesthetist (thank you!). Dozens of you clearly suffer with these awful things too. A chalazion is a swollen cyst that forms on the lid when an oil gland gets blocked, and boy, did you have a lot of suggestions for getting rid of them. Rubbing them with a copper coin or raw garlic (thanks but no); microwaveable heat bags, electric heated eye masks or the heat-up Peep Club eye wand (to warm the area and soften the oil blockage, great idea); bathing it in salt water, ‘letting it run its course’, homeopathic belladonna, or even a thick layer of Fucudin H (this is an antibiotic cream with hydrocortisone in it that’s used for infected eczema, which says on the packet that it may cause irritation to the eyes and mucous membranes).

Then there were those of you who said move straight to antibiotic eye drops, and ultrasound or even a steroid injection to loosen the blockage, though one long-term sufferer said she often ended up having minor surgery to remove the thing anyway, and recommended a daily dose of doxycycline during the winter to thin the oil in the glands and keep them away.  My friend Clare said she had hers excised surgically and it took ages to heal. Oh dear, I didn’t fancy that. “Try Tom Davies opticians,” someone else suggested, “they have dry eye clinics and do low level laser.” Goodness, where to start?

The medical opinions

Opinions kept on coming. “You have two options,” said Dr Irfan Jeeva, an oculoplastic surgeon based in Leeds. “Use warm compresses and it more likely than not will eventually go away, but it may take weeks or months. Or you can have it drained which obviously gives a quicker outcome. If the inflammation has caused scar tissue then it’s unlikely to drain on its own. Can you flip your eyelid and take a picture? Then I can tell you whether to carry on with warm compresses or whether that’s a waste of time.”

I tried, but I couldn’t flip the lid, so when Dr Elizabeth Hawkes, a consultant oculoplastic and ophthalmic who knows my eyes well (she did my second blepharoplasty), said she had space at the end of the day, I shot over to see her. “Yes, it’s a chalazion,” she confirmed, “it happens when the meibomian glands, which run vertically in the eyelid, and secrete the oily layer of our tear film, get blocked up. This film is really important to protect the eye surface but the glands get blocked very easily. A blockage could show up as a stye, then if it lingers, or it’s higher up in the gland, it’s called a chalazion. What you want to do to start with is use a bit of heat, a warm compress that’s not too hot, and massage downwards because the glands open between the eyelashes.”

The quantum-molecular option

I dug out my microwaveable eye mask and Peep Club wand and started using them three times a day, without seeing improvement, so when Viviana Botoaca from the Geneviv longevity and biohacking clinic suggested Rexonage3, I hurried over.

Rexonage3 uses quantum molecular resonance (QMR) to encourage the stem cells of the body or skin into action, to bring down inflammation and repair what needs repairing. It had worked wonders for me earlier in the year on a swollen knuckle. Could it help? “Let’s see!” said Viviana. The Lump had been in place for a week by now and didn’t look much different after my first session (a lovely soothing treatment, where the QMR is delivered into the skin with gentle massage via a special pair of conductive gloves). But by the next morning, it was half the size. Wow. Two more treatments, each 48 hours apart, and it’s now the size of a pinhead. Double Wow.

(There is a specific RexonEye device which will soon be available in the UK; someone who will have this in due course is optometrist Sharon Flora. She did the Envision treatments for my dry eyes earlier this year, here’s a link to the video about my Envision treatment.)

A full protocol to keep dry eye disease at bay

Clearly, I need to manage my eyes a bit better to stop this happening again, and pay attention to people like oculoplastic surgeons Jonathan Roos and Rachna Murthy of Face Restoration, who have their own immensely thorough “OptimEyes” protocol for treating dry eye disease. “Your blocked gland is due to underlying rosacea,” says Professor Roos, “it’s best treated with Optilight [Intense Pulsed Light], Purifeyes [a gentle hypochlorous spray cleanser and antimicrobial for the eyes], low-level light therapy and microbiome-friendly skincare.”

On top of that, Dr Murthy points out the importance of the link between our gut, our skin and our eyes – I had no idea that last part was connected. “Rosacea is due to gut dysbiosis,” she says, “and the microbiome in the gut communicates with the microbiome in the skin, and also with the microbiome in the eyes. One in 10 people in the world have rosacea, and of them, 80-90 per cent will have dry eyes.”

Wow. So much to learn. Thanks so much to everyone who dropped me a DM on this. And I hope, if you get smitten with one of these, this all gives you some idea of how to treat it.

What to discover more about the tweakments that Alice has tried and tested? Head to The Guide for more informative articles…