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Parents have been asking me an eyeful of questions about styes and whether they should worry if their child gets one.

Let me see if I can shed some vision on their concerns and provide some information on this topic.

A stye, also called a hordeolum, is a red, tender, sometimes painful bump on the upper or lower eyelid. It is usually due to an oil or sweat gland on the edge of the eyelid near the eyelashes used to lubricate the eye getting blocked and backed up.

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Causes and treatment

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¯ What blocks up the oil gland? It may be old oil, dead skin cells and old skin bacteria, usually the bacteria we call staphylococcus.

¯ Whatever the cause, it results in the gland getting clogged and appearing like a pimple on the inside or outside of the eyelid. A stye may look red and inflamed, be painful to touch, makes the eye water, and sometimes but not always may be infected.

¯ Treatment is usually simple and involves the application of warm not hot compresses to the stye for 15 minutes at a time to help the oil become more liquid. This enables the blockage to melt away and the stye empties out often with what looks like a yellow fluid.

¯ Squeezing the stye before it naturally drains may make the redness and inflammation worse and increase the risk of infection. Compresses should be applied at least 3 or 4 times a day until drainage occurs.

¯ Children and teens who wear contact lenses should switch back to glasses until the stye resolves and eye makeup should be avoided until the eye heals.

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When should you worry about a stye?

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¯ If there is no improvement with warm compresses over a few days

¯ The stye is getting more painful

¯ Your child develops a fever or has trouble seeing from the eye with the stye

¯ The stye keeps recurring.

Please let your child’s health care professional know what is going on. They may add a topical antibiotic cream or eyedrops or oral antibiotic to the treatment plan or refer you to a pediatric eye specialist to make a tiny cut in the eyelid to let out the clogged-up material.

Of note, having a stye does not make your child contagious. If they feel up to it, a child can still attend school, but they should not share towels, pillows, or washcloths while the stye is present.

Hopefully tips like these will be viewed as stylish ones when it comes to knowing what to do the next time your child develops a stye.

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Lewis First, MD, is Chief of Pediatrics at The University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine. You can also catch “First with Kids” weekly on WOKO 98.9FM and NBC5.