Killing Blepharitis

[LyndaT]

Dear drewlizard,

I thought about what you said in your message and slept on it.

You may have to use 3 wash cloths each time you clean your face. One for each eye and one for the face. You may have contacted the Blepharitis just by washing your own face. Just a thought as to why you can't make progress. You could be re-infecting yourself.

It is not a hard thing to do to see if it helps. I actually read that a doctor online said to use 2 wash cloths too.

Hope this info helps you.

LyndaT

[lizlou29]

If the staphylococcus infection is too bad or gone on too long it could end up being mites, called Demox, and tea tree oil is used for that problem

Do you mean Demodex mites? When you say it could end up being mites do you mean that a staph infection is a misdiagnosis and it is in fact Demodex?

[LyndaT]

Dear lizlou,

Here is what I found.

WEB MD
How Mites Might Cause Rosacea
“We found these bacteria inside these little Demodex mites,” Kavanagh says.
Demodex mites live on the skin of 20% to 80% of adults. The tiny bugs are invisible to the naked eye. Until recently, it was thought that the mites lived harmlessly, feeding off the oily sebum that coats the skin.
Kavanagh says changes in the skin brought on by age, stress, or illness sometimes allows the population of Demodex mites to swell. Research shows that people with rosacea have more than 10 times as many Demodex mites on their skin as people without the condition.
“When each of those [mites] dies, they release bacteria into the skin,” he says.
Those bacteria trigger an immune reaction that causes redness and inflammation of the skin. The mites themselves don’t seem to be harmful, Kavanagh says. It’s the bacteria they have inside their bodies.
“You can think of them like a bus,” he says. “They bus in large numbers of bacteria. But it’s not the bus that’s the problem; it’s the bacteria that get off the bus that’s the problem.”

Primary Care Optometry News
Of the 65 described Demodex species, only Demodex brevis and Demodex folliculorum are found on humans.
Demodex blepharitis is observed equally in males and females and is age related. A study by Junemann showed that Demodex is found in 25% of 20-year-olds, 30% of 50-year-olds and 100% in patients older than 90 years.

I have a friend in a home who had her eyes had yellow gunk and were almost glued her eyes shut. I finally used a wet ones wipe and it took it all off. I use them 2 times a week to keep it clean. She is over 90.
Don't know if bad eye hygiene can bring it on or catch from an animal or we have them on our eyes I just know it mentioned the bacteria on the eye and how the machine BlephEx worked on cleaning the eye margins and eyelashes with tree tea oil helped with both problems. My friend in the home it was the care she had. I wipe her eyes with water after too as she is too old to leave anything on her eyes. Still cleans it up.
Didn't mean to imply all go that way. Too much research here. Sorry about the spelling. Always in a hurry.

Hope this info I found helps.

LyndaT

[LyndaT]

Dear tealeaf,

The ones I know work are Wet Ones with Benzethonium Chloride in them. The UK Wet Ones ones have Benzalkonium Chloride in them and doing just as well. One person used a generic and was not good and irritating her eyes. I can only vouch for what I used and they can be bought online too. They are in a red box.
Just make sure you are not allergic to shampoos or detergents, fabric softeners or hand wipes. They have lanolin in them too. Some can be allergic to that.
Hope this helps you.

LyndaT

[cathy8889]

Hi Lynda T

I started using wet ones in about the middle of october, they helped straight away, I have switched to tea tree wipes from superdrug, they are having the same effect. The skin around my eyes is very dry but it beats the pain I was in. Things are a lot better, thanks for your help. i wish i had started using the wet ones sooner, I did not know bacteria was the problem but after taking doxy for four months and using wipes for 2 months i know that it was.

PS did you try azasite? I would like to try this next

Cath xx

[LyndaT]

Dear Cathy,

I think that was the name of the antibiotic that I used in my eyes 3 times. I used baby shampoo too. Nothing worked. I used the wipes as could not find what a friend used to kill it so looked online for what had that ingredient in it. It did take over 3 months as not real strong.
Some people have sensitive skin or are allergic to products like shampoos, detergents etc. About 80% of people are not allergic to these products.

A site I looked on from ophthalmology said to use the antibiotic on the eyelash area. They called it "off label use".
Others do know where to attack this problem.
Wish you good success.

LyndaT

[littlemermaid]

Cathy, it's more normal to use antibacterial eye wipes formulated for eyes, like Ocusoft Plus, and antibacterial facewashes for sensitive skin (see Dr Google). As LyndaT says, we must be very careful with benzalkonium chloride and similar with the sensitive dry eye surface from allergy or rosacea or autoimmune conditions, plus Faith tells us above she had a severe reaction needing steroids. Although I think Lynda is right that in recalcitrant blepharitis, hitting bugs with an effective treatment is widely overlooked by eye doctors once they've tried the standard antibac drops, we need to check we're dealing with the same conditions!

How to test meibom and what for, that is the question. Docs really need to move on from baby shampoo and invent a cheap solution for cleaning eyes for us all, especially for Lynda's lady in the care home.

[newton_chris]

Thank you Lynda for being so passionate about this subject and trying to get the word out. If this is something that helps some it is definitely good to get some publicity for it.

I have had MGD and bleph for nearly my entire life, and I'm currently 44. I have baby pictures of myself with red, irritated eyes. I understand how bad it can be and the helpless situation a lot of the readers of this blog feel. It seems like a simple problem we have, but the "cure" is very elusive.
Because of this we are very vulnerable to knee jerk reactions to try this and that to fix our problem.

In my opinion this “Wet Ones” solution looks risky. Some questions I have about safety. Please remember that these are all questions and I’m not attacking anybody and I thank Lynda again for being so passionate!

1) The assumption that we are not putting the chemical in our eyes seems to me to be false. The oil from our memebian glands comes out at our lid margins in the same place we are scrubbing with benzalkonium chloride. The oil from these glands is meant to disperse on top of our tears, so most likely some of the chemical will disperse onto our eyes during treatment whether our eyes are closed or not. Capillary action is a very powerful force of nature.

2) It seems the preservative used for eye drops is benzalkonium chloride and not benzethonium chloride. Assuming they are the same just because they are both quarternary ammonium salts seems scary. There may or may not be a reason they chose one over the other to be used as a preservative for eye drops.

3) Assuming the two salts are the same we are still using 30 times more in this mixture(.3% compared to .01%) than is in the highest preservative concentration of eye drops. This quote from the wikipedia page on the benzalkonium chloride should be scary:
“Benzalkonium chloride is a frequently used preservative in eye drops; typical concentrations range from 0.004% to 0.01%. Stronger concentrations can be caustic[4] and cause irreversible damage to the corneal endothelium.

4) How they work:
“Quat-based disinfectants carry a positive charge. Bacteria, viruses and fungi carry a negative charge. When a bacteria-laden surface is sprayed or mopped with a disinfectant, the charge distribution of the bacteria cell changes from negative to positive. This results in the disruption of the bacteria cell wall and eventual death to the microbe.”
Are there portions of our eyes that might be susceptible to the same chemistry that acts on the bacteria?

I want as much as anybody in this group a permanent solution, but I’m not willing to risk my corneal endothelium to test this.

[newton_chris]

Before you try these things in your eyes please read, "A mouse dry eye model induced by topical administration of benzalkonium chloride". Just throw that in google and the article is the first thing that should come up.

This study uses only .2% benzalkonium chloride (less than in the Wet Wipes) for only 7 days twice/day, and it is clear that dry eye is induced in some very nasty and scary ways.

I would not bet my eyes on the fact that the benzalkonium chloride in Wet Ones stays on the outside of your eyes with the Wet Ones application.

Again, thank you Lynda and everyone in this blog for trying to help everyone else. I wish everyone the best of luck on their search for a cure.

[Jelena Ristic]

Hi, just wondering if anyone here has been tested for Demodex Mites that might be causing their blepharitis. If that is the case, apparently tea tree oil formulations for eyes and skin are a very effective method to treat blepharitis. Wet Ones wipes sound like not only a shot in the dark, but also a big risk to eyes overall. Meibum should be checked to look for the root cause of the blepharitis before treatment I would think anyway.

http://www.reviewofophthalmology.com.../2088/c/36411/

[Minni]

Re: Tea Tree Oil - I have FM (autoimmune) and have found tea trea oil to be sorta irritating to me - not pleasant. I know there's rave reviews for that, as well as H2O2, as well as colloidal silver, and so much more. But I've found all of these to be unpleasant for me (throughout my murky past. such as during mercury-amalgam replacement & "detoxing" - attempting a million Erapies.

...and getting nowhere with any of them, despite rave testimonials.

People like me, with autoimmune conditions, get sensitive from so many things.

For example during my recent bout of poison ivy, I was so desperate that I followed advice to take bleach baths. All I can say is, that even if lets say it removed the poison,
...still I got irritated from it, at least temporarily, so I listened to my body & discontinued.

note, though, that other stuff was WAY worse, such as Technu which I tried initially, as well as 3 creams prescribed by doctors either worsened my condition, or were useless.

In the final analysis, what helped most for my poison ivy were the most gentle things:
(1) Wound honey - on the worst sores that were on my palms
(2) Non-phenolated Calamine on the less-tender areas
(3) Aveeno anti-itch was EXCELLENT (and note it contains menthol!
(anything with zinc & menthol were wonderful, and also warm mint-oil baths.

[Minni]

Hi, just wondering if anyone here has been tested for Demodex Mites that might be causing their blepharitis. If that is the case, apparently tea tree oil formulations for eyes and skin are a very effective method to treat blepharitis. Wet Ones wipes sound like not only a shot in the dark, but also a big risk to eyes overall. Meibum should be checked to look for the root cause of the blepharitis before treatment I would think anyway.

http://www.reviewofophthalmology.com.../2088/c/36411/

P.S. I know Dr.****** may advise Tea Tree Oil, but on the other hand, if you check out JerryTan EyeSurgery video, he concurs with my experience - stating that Tea Tree Oil is irritating. You can see his video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgav_kZ_Hi4
Another thing I find confusing, is not just the tea-tree advice on Dr.******'s site,
...but also TheraTears recommendation on Dr.Latkany's site.
I'm very sensitive, and TheraTears had caused me negative effects, thus money down the drain. When I'd phoned the company (practically impossible to reach them, as I recall) they were non-accountable, and that's putting it mildly. (The same goes for a certain Allergan product I'd once tried, i.e. they were non-accountable, although Allergan's mitigating factor is that at least their Refresh-plus is A1. It doesn't mean I'm a fan of either company, rather just the formulator of the A1-product.)

[KarenRB53]

Hoping to get this going again. Any information on getting rid of blepharitis appreciated. Does anyone have new information on using Wet Ones? Just tried Cliradex....so very painful to me. Can't use it.

[jennifermd2015]

I'd like to give my two cents on Tea Tree Oil. Obviously you should use it on your skin somewhere else to see if you have a sensitivity!! But if you do not, I mix a drop of castor oil and a tiny bit of tea tree oil and apply to my eyelids each morning and night...rubbing it into the lashes. I get no irritation and it makes my lashes feel healthy. I don't know if I have bleph or not but I sometimes get itchy spots where the lashes fall out or the skin gets red. Not so much when I use the tea tree oil and castor oil. I've also put castor oil directly into my eyes for dryness with no probs. Docs will often tell you not to do things but just remember they are covering their A*** or trying to sell you some pharmaceutical nonsense.