Clay
★★★★★
1. What Worked for Me: I used Indian clay mask, which I had on hand. While I would have preferred bentonite clay for its medicinal properties, the Indian clay did the trick. I mixed it with a bit of water to achieve a medium-thick paste. Each night, before bed, I applied this paste to my entire eyelid, though I think targeting just the bump would have sufficed. Sometimes, I even used it as a face mask!
In the morning, I gently removed the clay with a clean cotton pad soaked in comfortably warm water (instead of a warm compress, which had previously irritated my eye). After removing the clay, I used a tightly wound Q-tip—avoiding the fuzzy kind—to apply apple cider vinegar (ACV) directly to the bump. I poured a little ACV into a separate container for this purpose. I followed this routine for about a week, noticing improvement within three days and significant reduction in the bump by days five to six. Although I can no longer see the bump, I plan to continue for a day or two for good measure.
As a note, I'm a melanated (dark-skinned) African American woman, I say this because it is harder to notice discoloration on my skin due to my complexion and I did observe some slight discoloration on my eyelid from the ACV, so be mindful of potential discoloration and irritation especially if you are a lighter complexion.
2. My Logic: From my understanding, a chalazion is caused by trapped oils in the eyelid that fail to exit through the eyelashes. I found that many others reported success with ACV, which I imagined might dry out the oils causing the chalazion. While ACV alone was slightly irritating for me, combining it with the clay seemed effective.
3. My Experience with a Chalazion
I decided to try a clay mask over the bump on my eyelid. My logic was that clay is often used for acne because it can clear toxins and absorb excess oils. Since the skin is a large organ capable of both expelling and absorbing substances, I thought the clay might help with any trapped oils or bacteria. While I can't say for sure if my hypothesis was correct, I can say that the bump on my lid has vanished!
4. Backstory: One morning, I noticed a small bump on my upper right eyelid, about the size of a grain of rice. Thankfully, it was on my lid and not my eye, and there was no pain or irritation. After researching, I discovered it was likely a chalazion, as described in a YouTube video by a doctor. He suggested that if the bump was less than a week old, it might resolve on its own with warm compresses and gentle massaging. However, that didn't work for me.
I then sought out another video that explained the correct way to massage the eyelid—from the brow down toward the eyelashes. While this method made sense, it still didn't help. Feeling frustrated, I turned to Earth Clinic and saw many people had success with apple cider vinegar (ACV), but I didn't see much improvement with that either. It was at this point I decided to try the clay mask, as previously mentioned.
While I continued using ACV on a Q-tip for the bump, I eventually stopped for the last three days, as it seemed the clay was the primary factor in my improvement.
Summary of Thoughts:
1. The clay mask was the most effective treatment for me, more so than the ACV.
2. I believe bentonite clay might have been even more effective due to its known medicinal properties, but the Indian clay worked well enough.
3. Toward the end of the week, I mixed the vinegar with the clay mask and water, which seemed to enhance the results.
4. I also tried using witch hazel once instead of vinegar, but I switched back to ACV for consistency, so I can't draw any conclusions about that.
Conclusion: Navigating health issues can often feel isolating, but it's important to remember that you're not alone. Many people are facing similar challenges, and sharing our experiences can help others. I'm not a doctor, but I wanted to share what worked for me in hopes it may help someone else. If you've read this far, thank you for sticking with me!
Coconut Oil
★★★★★
It took some time for the chalazion to eventually burst and go away, but he has not had a recurring one since (it's been 6 months), and he was having them all the time (sometimes one in each eye). I think this is the way to manage someone (especially a child) who has recurring chalazion problems.
(New York)
07/18/2016
Another amazing remedy that helped my son was castor oil.
Coconut Oil
★★★★★
I have had chalazions many times. They usually take weeks or months to heal. I have had one surgically removed.
I will never do hot compresses again, the coconut oil is the answer.
I hope this helps many people avoid the embarrassment of chalazions.
(Orlando Florida)
12/05/2016
Colloidal Silver
★★★★★
My naturopath told us to do colloidal silver sprayed directly on to the eye 5 times a day for months. We also avoided eggs. And it treated the most gross looking stubborn stye I have ever seen. It did take a while, but this was a stye we had been battling for almost a year. Silver worked when nothing else did (so many different remedies mentioned tried). Now if we see one cropping up, we just do the silver sprays and it is gone by the next day or even as early as 1/2 day later. The most important part of it is that it really has to be 4-5 sprays/day. And the avoidance of eggs may be a crucial element as well.
Colloidal Silver
★★★★★
(Austin, Tx)
03/25/2018
Discover Your Food Sensitivities
★★★★★
Pay attention to what time of day the problem is worse or gets better. I saw one post where the contributor noted that theirs was worst in the morning. Mine was always better in the morning, and deteriorated after breakfast: of course, since I was usually eating eggs or cereal with milk, and I have learned that both eggs and milk are triggers. The person who wrote that theirs was worst in the morning is probably eating the offending food at dinnertime or later, causing the inflammation to increase overnight.
You will want to do some careful detective work, because you can't assume that a trigger food will give you a chalazion every time: if I eat one egg by itself, I am usually still ok. What happens is that your trigger foods will prompt a chalazion to set in if you either eat the food several days in a row -- or if you are run down or stressed at the time you partake of the food. Or if you eat multiple trigger foods at the same meal. (An egg quiche washed down with white wine would give me one for sure! )
So continue with all the great ACV, castor oil, etc. that are suggested on this blog -- but try to find why you are prone to them in the first place. Food sensitivities can cause a broad array of weird health issues.
Warm regards from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, JulieMarie
(Virginia)
10/05/2015
It's me again: something I forgot to add in my post above about food sensitivities, is that it often takes several days for a chalazion to emerge after eating a trigger food, so don't just look at what you ate the day before. Once you already have the chalazion, eating the trigger foods will worsen the problem, which is why time of day matters, once you have the problem. But when it first shows up, it might be something you ate in the middle of last week, so look carefully at your overall diet, rather than just the meal from the day before. Some trigger foods go to work faster than others: eggs will cause them for me within about two days. Other foods have a longer lag time. Hope this is helpful!
(England)
08/05/2021
★★★★★
This is really interesting because I suffered with styes for about five years (whilst also having tummy issues) getting one probably once a month/ every other month and then I stopped eating gluten for the tummy reasons for two years and I never had one single stye!
I tried gluten again 3 months ago and it seemed fine on my stomach but since I have had 2 styes one being very big maybe I need to annoyingly cut gluten out again then.
Echinacea
★★★★★
My pharmacist told me he had the same thing and to take the herb and it was gone.
Egg Compress
★★★★★
Two months went by and the tiny bump that seemed dormant the whole time suddenly started growing, and my eyelid again became red and a bit swollen. I found earth clinic and decided to try applying apple cider vinegar (which I heated up in the microwave, soaked up with a cotton ball and pressed to my eyelid for 5 minutes a few times a day). I didnt have "with the mother" ACV so I used some western family 5% acidity ACV. After day 3 of this, MY EYELID BECAME EVEN MORE RED, SWOLLEN, AND IRRITATED. And the bump seemed bigger than ever.
I immediately stopped using it and went to the doctor. The doc said I had a chalazion and I would have to see a specialist to get it lanced (they turn your eyelid inside out and cut open the chalazion to let it drain. heal time supposedly = 2 days). I decided to try some other natural cures before resorting to this, so I went out and bought the works... "with the mother" ACV, silver hydrosol (colloidal silver to drop in my eye), Activated charcoal capsules, and fankincense essential oil. I began with only using silver hydrosol drops five times daily. This seemed to take down the swelling and redness of the eyelid, but didnt do much for the bump. I proceeded to try all other above treatments, as well as FINALLY trying a warm moist compress 3 times daily. THE WARM MOIST COMPRESS REALLY SHOWED RESULTS!!!
Heres what I did that really seemed to work...
BOIL AN EGG- this acts to retain the heat for the warm (more like hot) compress
WRAP IN A COTTON SHIRT- you may want to fold over a couple layers of material, then take away layers as the egg cools off so the contact is always nice and hot (don't burn yourself, but you want it to be as hot as seems reasonable)
DIP THE SHIRT COVERED EGG IN THE HOT WATER- to get it moist, the steamy warmth feels great on your eye and I'm convinced helps.
APPLY TO YOUR EYELID- I would kinda push the bump around with the egg while I did this, to kinda massage it and stimulate it.
REPEAT AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN
I did this 3 times daily and immediately after would rub some frankincense oil on the eyelid. On the third day I could really feel the bump on the inside of my eyelid, like the skin was hardening and becoming slightly more abrasive on my eyeball. It literally felt like it was about to pop from the inside! The next time I applied the egg compress, I swear I felt the blocked oil duct in my eyelid open up, and the chalazion felt like it had popped. I looked in the mirror and the bump (that was about the size of a small pea) was considerably smaller, and there was gunk in the corner of my eye that easily wiped away. Over the next 2 days my eyelid felt much better, and I continued applying the egg compress, each time getting more gunk out of my eye and the bump becoming smaller and smaller until it was gone!
I really encourage anyone suffering from a chalazion to be persistent with the egg compress, I think off all the treatments out there this is the one that really produces some real results!!!
(Ireland)
07/01/2015
★★★★★
Epsom Salt
★★★★★
The regular salt water eye washes did get rid of all redness and inflammation. The Chalazions being so hard and stubborn after having them for 5 months have taken a lot of patience and determination to get rid but I'm almost there now.
First I washed my eyes 4 times a day with baby shampoo. I got 2 socks and filled them with rice to about the size of a golf ball and tied a knot in them and microwaved for about a minute. I soaked 2 large make up remover pads in Epsom salts and boiled water 50/50. I placed the soaked pads on each eye and then held the heated rice socks on my eyes being careful not to burn eyelids. I did this for half an hour, 4 to 5 times a day. Time consuming but it works! Having the constant heat there shrinks and softens the hard Chalazions. Gently massage after for about a minute each time.
I have been doing this repeatly for about 3 days now and my Chalazions have shrunk to about one fifth in size to what they were and are almost gone. I shall continue to do this until they have totally disappeared. I reckon 2 more days of this treatment should do the trick. I wish Doctors would give this advice to sufferers because this remedy really works, which is why I'm sharing this. I don't wish these awful unsightly things on anyone. Good luck and please just persevere as I have. I promise it really does work.
Epsom Salt
★★★★★
By this time the warm compresses did not help anymore bc it had hardened. Then I did some research and learned that Epsom salt mixed with water, a ratio of half and half worked well. Tried it, and saw immediate results that same night. I read online that someone's chalazion came to a head and broke open under their eyelid as they applied the epson salt mixture. I kept having discard in that eye during the treatment, so I opened up the lower lid and saw that the chalazion had came to a head and a string of white exudate and oil was coming out of it. The epsom salt was drawing all the oil and fluids out.
Now I realized that this is the process of osmosis I learned in physiology and chemistry. Fluids or molecules from a less concentrated state will always pass through a permeable membrane into a more concentrated one. I was so relieved. I could see instant results as I pushed and same more of it come out, and the gradually decreasing size of the chalazion. But I don't think pushing on it is a good thing, because it can create more inflammation and cause the chalazion opening to swell and close like a zit. I pushed on this same chalazion when it first started months ago while I was doing hot water compresses, and after that it just sealed up. After seeing this, I just applied more compresses of the mixture and it was completely gone in two -three days. There is still a tiny small lump inside my lid, too small to be visible, but I think it's because all the tissues were stretched so much by the chalazion that it left a small space/cavity.
Take half a cup of Epson salt and add half of cup of boiling water. Mix and pour into another cup and sit down on the sofa. Test the water. You want it to be hot enough to place on your face without burning it. Take a face towel and dip it into the cup, wring out a little of the solution, but you want it to be wet and a little dripping so that the solution can actually soak into your eyes. Press this hot towel to your affected eye and let it seep in. Hold for 3-5 minutes. Repeat again and change water when it gets cold. Do this a few times throughout the day. I got lazy so I only did it twice a day or so.
Hopefully this helps.
(North Cali., US)
02/07/2015
I also want to add that I thought the epsom salt mixture was going to burn real bad. To my surprise it didn't hurt at all.
Epsom Salt, Tea, Castor Oil
★★★★★
So to all those who want to get rid of a chalazion listen to these steps!
Okay so first you're gonna want to get epsom salt, chamomile lavender tea (or green tea), then you're gonna want to buy 100% castor oil (I purchased mine off of iherb.com)
Now, you're gonna want to bring water to a boil in a pan and pour epsom salt in it (stir to dissolve) then get your tea bag and put it in there.
Next grab your tea bag out of the water and put it close to ur eye and open ur eye and let the steam get into your eyelid pores, then once cooled down make it a compress and hold on eyelid till cold (repeat process) and then put Castor oil all over the bump and on eyelashes.
Also STAY AWAY FROM APPLE CIDER VINEGAR. it will only make things worse. :) also it's good to sleep with a cotton ball dipped in castor oil taped to ur eye! Take my advice and get rid of this problem!
(Minneapolis, Minnesota)
01/24/2018
Fish Liver Oil, Vitamins
★★★★★
Been suffering from recurring and embarrassing Chalazions for many years, having useless surgery where they completely missed the Chalazion altogether or it came back in the same spot weeks later... Surgery doesn't unclog the problem, which is a blocked meibomian gland. You can even see them if you look closely on your eyelid, separate from the eyelashes on the moist edge of your eyelids, you see many tiny hole openings. Some will be filled with fatty white blockage.
Within 60 days my Chalazions were gone for good after researching Vitamin A and D from Fish Liver oil. Being deficient in both, I took two softgels per day for sixty days and by the sixtieth day, the Chalazions were gone completely, though it is a gradual process that requires patience for those who want instant results from the awkward eye bumps. Warm compresses never helped me unfortunately, as the doctor suggested. Hope this helps. If you try it, be consistent and don't overtake vitamins per day.
This is available at most stores that have vitamins. Now I take one per day and it's been over two years and no Chalazions have recurred since. It really worked.
Keep in mind, there is no instant solution other than surgery, which leaves a big black and blue mark, swollen eyelid for a week, and the glands are still blocked, so it came back in the same spot weeks later... The doctor didn't even mention that vitamin A or fish oil could solve it. I think he either didn't know, or rather have more business when there's more problems.
(Santa Barbara, California)
11/26/2011
Jack, will regular fish oil pills work? Or does it have to be fish liver oil? Or cod oil? And what does the vitamin A anf D do to help? Thanks. Also was wondering why would people get the surgery if a steroid shot does the same thing pretty much? Or does it? I appreciate sites like these and all of everybodys input. Ive had this chalazion problem for almost a year. Started out as just one on my upper lid, then a month later the lower. Ive had them pop and form a scab, super annoying and embarrasing, I wear sunglasses at night, (people think I'm on drugs). Now there is two on my upper lid and still one on the lower. One on the upper has grown and is pretty large, it is sore and painful at night, why? And how did it grow? Ive been to a Dr. and researched the internet. I don't want surgery cuz most people say it comes back anyway and leaves huge scarring. Thinking bout the steroid shot?
Anyhow, internet research says chalazion will go away on its own but can take as long as a year or possibly longer. That's why I still have it, I guess, just been toughin it out, as its almost been a year. But it has gotten super worse!! Can't handle it anymore. And yes I've done hot compresses, but not that much at all, (doesnt seem to help). I started taking fish oil capsules, hopefully that helps. Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any input or advice.
(Germany)
08/14/2014
(Germany)
02/18/2015
★★★★★
Just to give a heads up. Omega 3 and vitamin A(tablet) worked for me. Chalazion is gone!
(New York)
02/03/2017
(London)
09/04/2018
Frankincense Oil
★★★★★
(Mechanicsburg, Pa)
07/30/2015
(Tennessee)
07/31/2015
Dear Dee,
When we are treating something serious or of a delicate nature and want to use a high quality essential oil, we use Mountain Rose Herbs or Heritage Essential Oils. Both companies use high quality oils and we have found them very effective. For "everyday" type use, though there are a number of oils that we have found to work just fine. We have been using Now oils for many years. I avoid oils sold through Multi-level Marketing companies though. Their oils end up being so expensive. I am not saying they aren't high quality or effective, but I don't think think it is necessary to buy super expensive oils.
I would get a high quality oil for use near the eye and be careful not to get it into the eye. (And if you do get it into the eye, flush with whole milk or olive or coconut oil.) Also, test an area of skin (perhaps the abdomen?) before using a new oil on a delicate area like near the eye to make sure there is no adverse reaction.
While the original poster used the oil straight on the chalazion, I would probably dilute it a bit with a carrier oil and see if that would be just as effective, and if not, then consider using it straight.
~Mama to Many~
(Nz)
11/14/2015
★☆☆☆☆
Frankincense Oil
★★★★★
(Georgia)
01/23/2015
Do you dilute the essential oil will a carrier oil, or did you apply it full strength?
(Tennessee)
01/24/2015
Dear Terri,
Frankincense essential oil is pretty gentle and I use it straight at times, but not near the eye area. Using near the eye I would dilute with a carrier oil. Maybe 1:5? Maybe less. Even diluted, I would try a small amount and make sure it isn't irritating the eye, and then dilute more if needed.
~Mama to Many~
(Sabah)
09/04/2015
Can I apply frankincense oil straight away to my daughter's inside eyelid aged 2yrs?
EC: Essential Oils are never to be used in the eyes.
(Tega cay, sc)
06/05/2023
Just wanted to thank you for your post. I'm new to all of this Chalazion stuff and have been struggling for 5 weeks with 3 of them. My eye swelled completely shut with the onset of two of them in my right eye. I've been feeling down as well and like a freak, and sad to not look pretty with eye makeup. I read your post and the prayers to God about your eye. I felt it was a Godwink reading your post. As I wasn't sure which way to go. Im a Doterra essential oil rep and I have a bottle or two of frankincense. I used it right away and feel hope which was lost before I read your post.
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