~ remove the stye in your own eye ~

At the risk of sounding vain, my eyes are quite possibly my best feature. Seriously, the Lord did pick me out a lovely pair of hazel eyes which, though they tend to change color like a chameleon, tend toward a teal hue.

Another of my endearing qualities (and the list is endless), is my ability to cry at the slightest thing. Like at Bible study Sunday evening, which is where I believe the source of my trouble began - all this crying and rubbing of the eyes. I declare, crying is for the birds.

My eye was tender when I was driving home Sunday night, so I rinsed it out with water just in case there were any foreign objects present and put myself to bed. I woke up with a swolen, red eyelid that had more rolls than my stomach! Though I had never had one before, I knew it was a stye.

Naturally, I googled "stye treatment" to find out what to do, and I am now passing on my experiential knowledge of what worked best. This picture is from yesterday (after two days of treatment - you should have seen the original manifestation), and today I am almost cured.

The most recommended treatment was a warm compress. After using a washrag the first day, I decided to try some advice on using a warm tea bag. Apparently any tea bag will do, but I personally enjoyed my choice of Tazo "Calm" Blend. The scent provided wonderful aromatherapy, and the peppermint served as a cooling agent.

My second favorite suggestion was the use of Johnson's Baby Shampoo for washing the sensitive eye area - the first morning you wake up with eye crusties you will understand how essential this product is! Finally, though few of the sites I consulted even mentioned the need, I found that lubricating eye drops helped to ease the discomfort while waiting for the stye to heal itself.

I am hoping my eye will be back to normal by tomorrow, and I can go back to flashing what my momma gave me (as featured here in my MySpace photo shoot)...