Thank you for your question.
You submitted a photo showing the right eye and you are stating in your question that
you had surgery 9 days ago.
You noticed the formation of a blister on the white part of your eye and when you brought
this to the attention of your doctor, your doctor stated that it may be related to a
suture or dissolving stitch.
Your doctor also didn't want to give you steroid drops because of concerns of slowing down
the healing process.
So you're at a place where you are putting cold compresses, putting eye drops in, and
you want to know if this will go away and if it’s normal for there to be pain.
Well, I can help you with this question.
I'm a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and I’m a Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic
and reconstructive surgeon.
In addition, just for clarification, I did a residency first in Ophthalmology and eye
surgery before specialized training in plastic surgery of the eyes.
I've been in practice for over 20 years in Manhattan and Long Island.
So, let's start by just defining what is the area of this elevation.
Now, when you have surgery on your eyelids—let’s just go back a little bit—you notice that
you have some bruising under your eyes, some black and blue.
Well, if you had a procedure such as a transconjunctival procedure like a transconjunctival blepharoplasty,
which means that the surgery was done from the inside of the eyelid, through the conjunctiva,
then it is possible for fluid to track along under the conjunctiva, and over the eyeball.
So it is possible that you could have had just tracking of fluid that collected in one
area—we often refer to that as chemosis.
We also can say that maybe there was a localized irritation that caused some reactive swelling
and fluid collection in that area.
Regardless, as long as there's no obvious signs of infection or inflammation, then it
certainly makes sense not to use an antibiotic or steroid drops, but rather to allow the
fluid to get absorbed.
I always explain to our patients that the fluids swelling on the conjunctiva is similar
to the swelling that is under the skin in that what's different is that the conjunctiva
is clear, while the skin is not.
That being said, it will take some time, it will take a couple of weeks typically for
this to fully get absorbed.
It often looks much worse than it actually feels.
Regardless of the etiology, it's fluid.
As long as there's no other ophthalmic compromise where there are problems with vision, or with
the possibility of infection, and it sounds like you and your doctor have a good dialogue
and you're getting the information and feedback and guidance, so I think that most likely,
just based on these photos alone and your description and without the benefit of a physical
examination, I think you can anticipate that things will get better.
In the meantime I think it's important that you maintain constant communication with your
doctor and I'm sure you've got some office office visits already scheduled to follow
your progress along the way.
So I hope that was helpful and I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you for your question.