Question about rinsing after expressing / warm compresses

[PotatoCakes]

I was told by my doctor to do 10 minute warm compresses, 2x a day followed by a sterile saline 'scrub' with a Q-tip on upper & lower lids, followed by a 'rinse' with saline to get the meibomian gland oils out. Just curious, if the oils are good for my eye, and I'm doing this regularly, why do I need to rinse them out? He said my eyes would be red following the process because of the oils but they would be red anyway because of the entire process so that seems silly to me.

Most of the time, I try to be really good about doing these warm compresses but I just went a week without due to vacation (I did use a warm washcloth to wipe my eyes daily) and noticed no real difference in dryness. I've also wondered if the warm compresses could be increasing the eyelid inflammation I have.

Any thoughts?

[Rebecca Petris]

Just curious, if the oils are good for my eye, and I'm doing this regularly, why do I need to rinse them out?

Well, the point of the heat & massage is not to squeeze oil out into your tear film but to clean them up and clear them out so that throughout the day better quality oil will flow from the glands when you blink and naturally express oil. If you have MGD & blocked or icky glands, the stuff being pushed out from the orifices isn't necessarily what you want floating around in your eyes.

He said my eyes would be red following the process because of the oils but they would be red anyway because of the entire process so that seems silly to me.

Might need to be a little gentler?

Most of the time, I try to be really good about doing these warm compresses but I just went a week without due to vacation (I did use a warm washcloth to wipe my eyes daily) and noticed no real difference in dryness. I've also wondered if the warm compresses could be increasing the eyelid inflammation I have.

Hmmm interesting. You're right on target because heat causes inflammation. A lot of lid manipulation can contribute too. Compresses are step forward step backward in that sense and for them to make sense in the long run, there need to be more demonstrable steps forward than steps backward.
You say that not doing them made no difference to the dryness, but what does that really translate to? Don't know. It might be because it's literally doing nothing at all to help in any way. It might be that your steadiness in doing it before that point had lasting benefits. It might be that you're improving clinically (i.e. if the doctor examined your MGs he'd see improvement) but not symptomatically YET. Frustrating, I know. Patience often really pays off with these things but you might want to ask him if you can reduce the time on the heat?

[PotatoCakes]

I've been seeing my current doctor since October of 2010 and doing the compresses fairly religiously (minus vacations where I don't have access to a microwave) since then. I see him approx once a month and at each appointment, I ask if there's any change, positive or negative. Each time, he tells me no improvement )=
My lids and eyes don't look a lot different either, from my eye w/o all the fancy magnification, etc. It did *seem* to me that over the last week, my inflammation was milder but sometimes I just don't know whether I'm seeing improvement because my wishful thinking is tricking my mind or because it's really there. According to my doctor, there hasn't been so I tend to think it's my mind playing tricks on me.

I have what I think are good eye days and bad eye days but I'm also very aware that the eye can become numb to some of the discomfort (at least that's what my specialist told me) and I may just not be feeling how bad it is some days. I try to be religious about sticking to my regime when I can -- to the point where I set an alarm on my phone to go off hourly to remind me to put eye drops in. I can't always keep them shut for 2 minutes following administration but for the last 2-3 months, I've made a special effort to do that any time it's remotely possible. I sometimes administer drops in one eye at a time so I can keep that eye shut for 2 minutes followed by the other eye so I can still continue my life. It makes me cry when I think about it -- my 4 year old, who has no business being bogged down with my eye problems, reminds me to put drops in and sometimes leads me around the house with my eyes closed.

[manitobaskyline]

When I express my glands, I do need to wash my eyelashes/lids with something that makes a sudds (baby shampoo or I use Sterilid) and reinse throughly. For some reason my eyes will be irritated if I don't do that.

[PotatoCakes]

Prior to seeing my current specialist, I was using baby shampoo or Ocusoft but I stopped after my specialist told me anything like that was bad. I don't know how accurate he is but his reasoning (stripping good oils, etc) made sense so I've been afraid to try anything but saline / warm compresses since.