I'll keep this as brief as I can.

The tl;dr - I have an epidermoid cyst on my face that became inflamed, was not removed properly, and is now ruptured. I'd like to know if it's possible for it to heal on its own, or if it's necessary to have it surgically removed.

The full story - I was a chronic skin picker since my early teen years. I say "was" because the urge to pick my skin went away completely after this recent disaster. I don't really know what prompted the skin picking in the first place, but it isn't an issue anymore.

In October, I had two small pimples on my cheek that I squeezed and pricked with a needle one night. When I woke up the next morning, the entire side of my face was swollen about twice its size, the lymph nodes on my neck were swollen, and in place of the pimples was a large yellowish lesion that looked a bit blue in areas.

It was extremely hard, but the whole area felt pretty numb if I touched it. I stupidly messed with it for a while, squeezing and pinching at it with tweezers. Eventually a ton of thick, foul smelling yellow-green liquid came oozing out. The area felt slightly less numb after that.

I stayed home that day out of shame, hoping whatever it was would heal. But the following morning, I was extremely sick with a fever and my face was even more swollen and bluish looking, which had me terrified.

I went to the emergency room, which was a waste since the care I received was so poor. The staff didn't even seem convinced the swelling and fever was brought on just from skin picking. They just emphasized that they are not dermatologists and prescribed some antibiotics before sending me home.

The lesion healed in about three weeks. It left a round pink mark on my cheek that was slightly depressed, with a 1.5 cm oblong lump in the middle that was raised. I could feel something underneath the lump that seemed to move if I pressed on it, but I have never had a cyst or boil before, so I didn't know what this could be. I just left it alone to continue healing and stopped the skin picking.

In March, the area started to get itchy and very red. The raised lump also seemed to be getting bigger, so I finally went to see a dermatologist. She told me it was an epidermoid cyst that appeared to be inflamed and recommended removing it. I had a procedure done in her office a month ago, which involved making a small incision in my cheek and removing the contents of the cyst. The hole that was made was very tiny, so it wasn't stitched up to minimize any scarring. The spot seemed flat afterwards, but it was extremely red.

A few days later, the redness was worse and the raised lump reappeared below where the incision was made. It was extremely painful to touch. I went to a different doctor who told me that it's unlikely the entire cyst wall was removed during the first procedure, which allowed it to fill back up again. She said the cyst wall seemed to have burst, hence the extreme tenderness and pain, but she was very reluctant to do anything further with it. She said I would be left with a very nasty scar if any more incisions were made, and seeing as it's smack dab in the middle of my face, that would be pretty devastating.

She prescribed antibiotics and suggested I use warm compresses daily to treat it. 5 weeks later, not much progress has been made. The area that was raised is much flatter now, and every day more gunk drains out of it, which I suppose is good. But there is a sticky yellowish film over the lesion that is very painful and doesn't seem to be healing. It's a bit rubbery, and if I withstand the pain and scrape the gunk away with a fingernail, it comes back the next day.

I've been wearing bandaids on my face for a month like a chump, and I'm desperate for a solution. I've tried to research these things as much as I can, and I've read some suggestions that it may be possible to dissolve the cyst wall without cutting it open - is this true? Or is my only hope having it properly surgically removed and just accepting the resulting scar?

Any help here is really appreciated.