bumps on eyes..a little worried

About 9 months ago my left eye started hurting. I thought it was a stye. I had styes when I was younger so I really didn't think anything of it. I put a tea bag eye on quite a few times but it wasn't going away as fast as previous ones. I woke up about a week later and my right eye also had what I thought was a stye. I looked to see if they were contagious and the internet said they were so I assumed I just had two pretty bad styes. For about two weeks my eyes were in a large amount of pain. I just kept putting teabags on them and they appeared to settle down and go away.

I noticed after the pain was gone and I could touch my eyes more that there were still two hard lumps on both of my eyes but there was no pain. There was also what looked like white heads on both of them right on the rim of my lash. These are on the top of my eyelids by the way. I figured they may just go away. The next month (February) my right eye flared up again. The pain was back and then it seemed to spread to my left eye. My eyelids became very inflamed again. I continued with the teabags and the same thing reoccurred. They went away and left two painless bumps with whiteheads on them. Eventually the bump on my right eye simply went away. My left eye flared up again and did the same thing as always and the right one didn't bother me anymore at all. For about four months nothing happened at all.

The hard bump on my left eye remained the same for these four months only the whitehead went away. This month is flared up again. About 3 days ago. It is settling down now. It seems the bump on my left eye has gotten smaller. Every morning for 3 days I have woken up with my eye pretty much glued shut with crust. The bump gets significantly smaller. My right eye was never bothered again after the bump went away so I am hoping my left eye is following suit.

can anymore tell me what this might be? Is it just a really really bad stye or something else? This has never happened to me before. The bumps on the eye aren't big at all or even noticeable without touching them unless they become inflamed and painful. Is this going away and draining or something? What could it be? I don't have insurance so I don't want to go to the doctor unless I am in a large amount of pain or it seems serious. Please help!

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

You need to see an phthalmologist.  You may have a chronic infection.

Dr. O.