Amelia asks…What is the most effective (and cheapest) way to remove milia around the eyes? What causes it?
The Right Brain’s Milia-tary Response:
For those of you who don’t know, Milia is a skin condition that is characterized by small white bumps. The most common types, primary and secondary milia, are keratin filled cysts that are essentially harmless. Milia are extremely common in infants (but adults get them too) and they are believed to be caused by oil producing glands in your skin that are not fully developed. (Here’s a link with more medical details on milia.)
What can you do about this problem? We wish there was a miracle cream or lotion but apparently there are no topical or systemic drugs that are proven effective against milia. However, your doctor can treat them surgically, in a process that we can only describe as … yuck:
…incision with a cutting-edge needle and manual expression of the contents are effective. This can be performed without local anesthetic.
Mmmmm. No anesthetic! So, we’re sad to say, that unless you consider a visit to a dermatologist involving un-anaesthetized surgery as an option, your choices for “effective and cheap” treatment are pretty limited.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
The good news is most types of milia are harmless. The bad news is, there’s no cheap, easy way to get rid of them.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
When my husband gets them near his eyes, I sterilize a straight pin, pierce each one and squeeze out the guck (which is pretty much what a doctor would do). Works every time.
I get them, too – and I do the same thing that AlkalineSteam does – using a sterile straight pin. The only really tricky spot I have had was right next to my tear duct on the rim of my eye, and it was so sensitive that I had to wait over a year for it to be close enough to the surface and big enough to deal with using a straight pin on it. (Very VERY carefully.) I definitely recognize the risk of using a pin that close to my eye, but I was able to get rid of it with enough care and a steady hand.
I have one under my eye that always annoys me, and then several smaller ones. Even when I’ve managed to squeeze it (which is not recommended!) it comes back within a week. I always thought high cholesterol was one of the main causes for it (and I do indeed have high cholesterol). Ugh.
Extracting is not painful. Milia are white and not yellow. Yellow are cholesterol. These are different than Milia.
Here is a clip of the extraction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcPGKYslrJo
Hope this helps
Not all white bumps are milia. I get calcified pilar (hair) cysts.
BTW The title should be “What are milia and … Milia is plural; singular is milium.
Wouldn’t Retin A help if you don’t get it too close to your eyes?
I do not know if what me and my mother suffer from is Milia, but they were indeed little white bumps under our eyes. In some of the pictures I googled, the images resembled what we had, and in many, they didn’t. They were def not whiteheads and I truly never considered taking a needle to them, as they were usually very tiny. I do know, however, that they have COMPLETELY disappeared after a few weeks of a new beauty regime I tried — unfortunately, I am unsure of WHICH method worked, if either method worked or if it’s all a coincidence. However, I will share, because there is a chance that it DID work, and one of the ingredients is responsible for clearing these up (or perhaps they just disappeared on their own, after several years of residing on my face). The first thing I began using was Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream. I also began using Ponds Cold Cream to remove makeup. And last but not least, I began splashing a little witch hazel on my face, but specifically on my under eye circles. I have noticed a HUGE difference in my skin quality, and those little bumps are completely and utterly gone, but I do not know exactly what made them disappear. I figured if anyone else suffers from them, though, it certainly won’t hurt to try these products in hope one of them gets rid of it, too. Or perhaps just the moisturizing works? I have especially dry skin — it seems that the more lotion and oil I can put on my hair, the better, and it’ll never get too oily. I’ve even put Crisco on my face during a skin allergy, and the next morning it was practically cured.