Pain in top corner of left eye?

I've been having a problem with my left eye as of late. I've noticed that the corner of my eye closest to my ear feels like it's bruised. I tried looking at my eye in a mirror and I can't find any visible bruises, cuts, redness, or swelling. I believe the problem might lay within my lacrimal gland (it seems from the pictures I found on the net that it's the only thing laying where the pain is).

The pain is the worst when I wake up, then it gradually gets better during my day. I actually went to my school nurse this morning and she gave me some saline eye drops (which helped little to none).

Note: I've had this pain before (with the same place + same eye) and it went away. I'm afraid something is wrong since it's back and there has been persistent pain for three days.

[Sandra M Brown, MD]

If your eye is not red AT ALL including the upper outer corner of the eye (under the eye lid - you can't look at this yourself, someone needs to look for you) then you may be right that this is inflammation of the lacrimal gland.  This also assumes that you have no pain on eye movement.  Dacroadenitis (or dacryoadenitis) can be seen after mononucleosis, mumps, and nonspecific viral infections.  If this presumptive diagnosis is correct it should respond to something like ibuprofen.  You don't say how long ago you had the first episode of pain but if it was 6+ months ago and you have had no problems since then, you are not in an 'emergency' situation.  This may remain a mystery until / unless other more visible problems develop.  See an Eye MD, ideally when you are having symptoms.