Stye and Chalazion in Children

Host: A sty.

Dr. Steven Rosenberg: A sty is a kind of huge, to me, any bump on the eyelid, but medically it refers to a condition on the outside of the eyelid on an inflamed gland. There is a very similar type of condition called the chalazion that happens on the inside of the eyelid.

Stys tend to go away very quickly, tend to go away in a few days if you are treated with warm compresses. Sometimes they can get secondarily infected or sometimes you will need some ointment or creams to put on the outside and very rarely will need oral antibiotic, if they are secondary infection. However, chalazion which is on the inside of the eye will sometimes tend to last much longer and sometimes people think when the sty is lasting much longer, what's going wrong here, but maybe it's chalazion.

So the primary treatment for both sty and chalazions are you need to use warm compresses on the eye. You take a clean washcloth or paper towel dip it in warm water put over your child's eyes for about 10 or 15 minutes. Hopefully, three times a day, but as long as you can get it at bedtime that might even be enough and just see if that will help the sty and chalazion drain and at that point it will resolve.

These are both conditions of different types of glands and the eyelid getting clogged up. Since primary treatment to unclog these is warm compress. Rarely the chalazion does need to be drained surgically, if it does not go away on its own. It's a short surgery, sometimes a steroid cream can be tried. But this should only be tried after warm compresses has been given a chance to work on their own.


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