Yesterday you noticed a slight redness on your arm, but thought you had simply bumped it against something. Today, the red spot has turned into a painful, red, swollen lump that looks and feels awful. Chances are, what you’re looking at is a boil.

“Most boils occur when a hair follicle is infected with staphylococcus, a bacteria that is present in many areas of the body and is often carried on the skin,” says Vincent A. DeLeo, M.D., assistant professor of dermatology at Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. “The size of the boil depends on the depth of the infection, or the depth of the infected hair follicle. The deeper the infection, the larger the boil,” he continues. A small, more superficial boil looks like a little pimple on the surface of the skin.

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