Why Sjogren's Disease Has Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD)

Why Sjogren's Disease Has Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD)

What is Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD)?

• Meibomian Gland Dysfuynction  (MGD)  is “a chronic abnormality of the meibomian oil glands located on your eye lids.  It is often associated with Blepharitis - inflammation of the eye lids.  This condition is commonly characterized by duct obstruction and/or qualitative/quantitative changes in the glandular secretions.  If you suspect you may have MGD, ask your eye doctor to express your meibomian oil glands and tell you what comes out.  Description should be
• Clear- normal
• cloudy
• tooth paste
• nothing comes out.

 What comes out can tell you a lot about your oil glands, and how to recover from Sjogren's dry eyes.  As long as the glands are clogged, dry eye symptoms are likely to persist.

People with MGD has all the symptoms of chronic dry eyes-

• Eye irritation
• Blurry Vision
• Foreign Body Sensations
• Light Sensitive
•  etc

Clinical Study Indicates Sjogren's has high incidence of MGD 

This is an abstract from a publication  1. Sullivan, DA et al. Androgens and dry eye in Sjögren’s syndrome. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1999;876:312-24.

Clincal Result

 

Fluorescein and rose bengal staining scores were significantly higher in the SS group than in the non-SS group (P = 0.0001). Evaporation of tears was increased significantly in the SS group compared with the non-SS group. There were no significant differences in the rate of tear production between the SS and non-SS groups. Meibography showed that 11 (57.9%) of 19 eyes in the SS group had gland dropout (i.e., histologic destruction of meibomian glands) in more than half of the tarsus. The incidence was significantly higher than that in the non-SS group (5 [18.5%] of 27 eyes; P = 0.005).

Conclusions

The results of this study indicate that destruction of meibomian glands and an increase in tear evaporation often are associated with changes in the ocular surface in patients with SS. Severe ocular surface changes in patients with SS may be attributed, in part, to the meibomian gland dysfunction.

 TheraLife Can Help

TheraLife Eye is a patented formula specifically to treat Sjogren's Dry Eyes. 

We highly recommend that all Sjogren's customers do hot compresses twice a day, 10 minutes each time and clean eye lids   Check out our Autoimmune Starter Kit.

References



1. Sullivan, DA et al. Androgens and dry eye in Sjögren’s syndrome. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1999;876:312-24.
2. Sullivan, DA et al. Androgen deficiency, Meibomian gland dysfunction, and evaporative dry eye. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2002 Jun;966:211-22.
3. Sullivan, DA et al. Sex steroids, the meibomian gland and evaporative dry eye. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2002;506:389-99.
4. Craig JP, Tomlinson A. Importance of the lipid layer in human tear film stability and evaporation. Optom Vis Sci. 1997;74:8-13.