Dry Eye Treatments at home- How to unclog Meibomian Glands
You have been told you have meibomian gland dysfunction. If you have Blepharitis, most likely you also have clogged meibomian glands.
How you can help unclog oil glands at home
Have your eye doctor teach you how to unclog your meibomian glands at home.
There are
expensive equipment that apply heat to melt the clogging, but your
glands will clog again. Use hot compress daily to keep them open.
How Does Meibomian Oil Glands Work?
The meibomian glands live
in the upper and lower eyelids. There are approximately 15 - 20 glands
per lid.
The gland openings lie on the edge of the eyelid just inside the
eyelash line. The body of the gland is inside the tarsal plate, which is
a very thin piece of cartilage that gives the eyelid its defined shape.
When your doctor everts your lid (flips it inside out) he is flipping over the
tarsal plate.
Although most diagrams of meibomian glands show a hollow tubular structure that
looks like a permanently open space, a meibomian gland is more of a potential
space. If the gland is empty of meibomian oils, it collapses in on
itself. In fact even when the gland is "full" only a
very thin film of oils may actually separate the cells lining the walls of the
meibomian gland.
Meibomian oils are not squirted onto the surface of the eye. They seep
out slowly under the gentle pumping action of eyelid blinking, combined with
continuous oil production which pushes oils out onto the eye lid margin when
the gland's potential space is fully expanded.
When the eyelid margin becomes inflamed, this inflammation can "cap
off" the meibomian gland orifices. There are numerous causes of
eyelid margin inflammation that will not be discussed here. If the glands
continue to vigorously produce oils, the oils erupt through the sides of the
glands and coalesce into a mass commonly referred to as a stye. However
in many patients, obstruction of normal oil seepage causes the meibomian gland
to decrease production and the oils retained in the gland become thick and
degraded.
In the past 2 - 4 years, eye care providers have become more widely aware of
the connection between meibomian gland dysfunction and ocular surface
symptoms. One simple office test is to lightly press on the glands while
the patient is seated at the slit lamp. The examiner is looking for the
quantity and quality of oils, how many glands express, how hard s/he has to
push to make this happen, and how readily the oils disperse into the tear
film.
Meibomian oils are quite easy to see at the slit lamp but
essentially impossible to see with the naked eye except through elaborate
magnification methods.It is not necessary for
100% of the meibomian glands to function for adequate oils to be secreted into
the tear film. Many asymptomatic patients have far fewer than 100% of the
glands producing oils at any given time. Lower lid meibomian glands seem to
"take a hit" sooner that upper lid glands, so it is important for
your doctor to express both upper and lower lids to give your glands an overall
function score. Patients with about 80% of their upper lid glands functioning
well may have no symptoms even if the lower lid glands are producing almost
nothing.
How does oil gland expression mean?
Eye care providers sometimes prescribe meibomian gland self-expression or
patients take it upon themselves to "clear out" their glands
periodically. Generally the process is to apply heat to liquefy the oils,
followed by eyelash cleaning (or sometimes the reverse order) and then gland
expression.
TheraLife Eye is effective in reducing inflammation and stimulates tear flow for chronic dry eye relief. Often people with chronic dry eyes also have Blepharitis. Treating chronic dry eyes reduces the inflammation, and also helps to reduce the recurrence of blepharitis. It is highly recommended that those who have Blepharitis stay on TheraLife Eye long term to increase the rate of success.
To learn more about
Meibomian gland dysfunction click here
Chronic Dry Eye Syndrome: click here.
Learn more about how TheraLife Eye works : web link
Buy Now- Select from TheraLife Bundled Discount Solutions.
Call and talk to a doctor 1-877-917-1989 US/Canada
email to: info@theralife.com
