To demand a referral to eye clinic? *Contains graphic pic of eye*

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My son has a meibomian cyst on his eyelid which is causing him pain and discomfort. We've seen 5 nurse practitioners, 1 GP, about 6 pharmacists and been to minor injuries where they phoned the on call ophthalmologist who refused to see him.

All advice has been to bathe it, massage it and give pain relief.

Am I unreasonable to just want someone trained and experienced to look at his eye??

Ds is 11

get your optition to refer you. my son has these under his eyelids and they scratch his eye and are extremely sore. you need an eye specialist as they can prescribe the proper eye drops .

Thank you!! Will be making an appointment tomorrow.

Also an eye hospital in Marylebone. Go early in morning if you go!

I agree with you. You need an eye specialist to examine using equipment to look into and around his eye to diagnose properly. The skin also looks broken and very sore.

There's an emergency eye centre at North Middlesex Hospital (Edmonton) and Princess Alexandra (Harlow, Essex).

I've had an abscess under my eyelid previously, and it's incredibly painful and uncomfortable.

I hope you get some help for your DS.

If an optician refers you they have to see you, and they do pretty quickly,
I think thats your best bet

Kingston is another London eye a&e- I had to go to an a&e drop in as they don’t do emergency appointments. This was after an eye test with a note from the optometrist asking for an urgent referral.

On the upside the drop in a&e took less time than the actual booked appointments later on.

We're in Gloucestershire, unfortunately we don't have an a&e for eyes.

Bristol has an eye hospital I think? Not sure how far that would be.

www.nhs.uk/service-search/Eye-accident-and-emergency-services/LocationSearch/1858

There’san Eye Dept A and E in Birmingham called the Birmingham and Midlands Eye Centre would you be able to travel there?

Oh my goodness, NO gethappy OP, I appreciate your desperation but please, please, please do not misuse eye casualty on the inaccurate advice of nonmedically trained Mums-netters, no matter how well meaning they are!
It sounds like you had a bad experience with your GP but don’t tar us all with the same brush
I would refer this to the eyelid clinic and in my local area it would pass the referral criteria for being accepted. Try and book another GP appointment and good luck

We got referred with smaller, recurring ones and steroids and hot(warm) compresses sorted it out.

You can get this removed if you go to a private consultant ophthalmologist. They may suggest trying 'conservative measures' first ie. hot compresses/chloramphenicol but if you make it clear that no, it needs to come off, this will be done (providing medically suitable).

It should cost around £500 all in, depending on area. It will be done under local anaesthetic and will be a bit sore afterwards with a dressing.

Use google and find someone at a local private hospital. Ophthalmologists have a range of specialities so you will need to choose someone who is able to carry this out- usually they'll describe themselves as a lid specialist.

It's a common problem and does not require specialist input - you have had 12 opinions. By all means pay to see someone privately, but you've used enough NHS resources

My teen had one, started about September 2017. I work in hospital with busy ophthalmic dept and sometimes have dealings with the staff there. So first of all I asked the senior sister for advice. Bathe, bathe,bathe and massage.
With no improvement I used my position being friendly with the sister to get her seen at the emergency clinic they put on for which you normally need a referral. Told again to go away and continue hot bathing and massaging. There had also been a couple of visits to GP by this time with prescription for chloramphenicol ointment.
By new year there was no improvement. There may have been another GP appointment I can't remember it all now but at one point it really came to a head and I thought it might pop. Having established A&E weren't busy, it being Sunday morning (good tip for those not really an emergency visits) I took her in as I really (wrongly) thought someone might do a favour and pop it but the Dr rightly explained she wasn't eye specialist and wouldn't do it, it wasn't emergency so they wouldn't call in the eye specialist but we got another appointment at the emergency ophthalmic clinic. Here the Dr agreed to apply for funding for the surgical procedure to remove it.

Key points here -

1. It is not routinely funded, you need to have had it about six months before they will consider.
2. In her favour there had been, by then, multiple visits to GP, A&E and clinic.

You need to have that trail of keeping going back, Dr and Sister had both advised this. Tedious but you won't get funded without.

1. She laid it on thick about her embarrassment, being shy, affecting her confidence etc. Because it's pretty much harmless unless affecting vision but unsightly so in the current NHS something you can just put up with or pay privately for. (Looked into that, I think it was about £2K)

Yay, we got funding through quickly as the GP was sympathetic and bored of our repeated visits and she had it done two weeks later, I think it was April or May by then. Surgeon said it was worse than expected, had tracked through and definitely wouldn't have resolved spontaneously. So it may get better with bathing etc but go to your GP and be prepared for a long fight to get it treated if need be.

Also it was a quick, easy procedure under local anaesthetic. Teen was nervous but really wanted rid so prepared to overcome her fears. It was better than expected and she was fine. No problems since.

I encourage careful removal of eye make up, cleanliness of applicators and the occasional hot bathe.

Good luck OP. That does look angry, hope it improves.

Eye Hospital A&E, there are a few around the country. They have specialists on tap and they have walk in clinics.
Moorfields has a specialist paediatric eye A&E clinic. It is very busy though, expect to have a 3 hour wait to be seen.

So you have three options OP: try and treat it yourself, pay to go private or travel to an eye A&E where you will be seen for free.

Hows things now?

Bristol Eye Hospital A&E is excellent and is open 7 days/week. V easy to get to from Gloucestershire.

I had one of these removed once and it was one of THE most painful things ever, getting local anaesthetic in the eyelid. It didn’t come back though. I was advised to use a blepharitis wash stuff to stop them coming back.

We have ointment for his eye and an appointment with my gp tomorrow. It's not as red as it was but still painful for him.