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I was diagnosed with MGD in 2014, after I damaged my right eye and started to experience menthol sensation and dry eye in it. Initially I was sceptical about MGD because I didn't quite feel enough discomfort on the other eye to be concerned. I felt some symptoms in left eye but they were minor, while the right eye was in completely different level (worse). But it generally was evaporative. While I was in panic trying to initially find out what happened with the right eye, I gone through multiple unfortunate events with my eyes, including conjunctivitis after the eye damage, multiple antibiotic and other drops during multiple weeks, and a horrible eye allergy to anesthetical eye drops. All in all, it brought my eyes to a pretty bad condition and that's when I started to notice a white foam forming in the outer corners of both eyes (more on that later).
I was prescribed with warm compresses and self-massage, but I never mastered compresses and never quite felt they do anything except irritating my eyes (though after the hot shower or the sauna I frequently felt relief). The right eye gradually became better by itself, and at the end I generally did nothing to manage dry eye and MGD, except of a non-preservative drops in the right eye once before going to bed. Until now.
Recently, and quite abruptly, the condition of my eyes changed (mid-March). The right eye was brought back to where it was in my worst days - quite unbearable to do any screen time, and pretty bad being outside or in dry environments. And also I started to feel my left eye while walking outside. That was like a systemic effect, when the both eyes started to evaporate drastically faster, so that my right eye became a mess, and my left eye became very noticeable - the increased evaporation happened evenly and "in parallel" in both eyes. And also I started to notice that white foam in the outer corners of both eyes again.
I then started to research intensively and realised pretty fast what kind of beast (MGD) I'm dealing with. I read quite a lot here on forums and watched Dr. Korb's talks and now I have quite good understanding of the importance of MGD management. But also I wondered why the current change with my eyes happened so fast? I couldn't get my glands suddenly and evenly blocked/atrophied in parallel in both eyes - right? Again, it looked like some systemic reason that caused increased evaporation, and probably this reason affected the quality of my meibum. And then I found this: https://youtu.be/IJnFsPffN6I?t=3488 - Dr. Korb talking about saponification of tears and stating that the reason of it is meibum not being right quality.
So I started to think what might cause this and suddenly recalled that approximately half-month ago I ended the antibiotics treatment for pneumonia - I initially took Amoxicillin + Clavulanic acid (1000 mg) for 7 days, and then I took Azithromycin 500 mg for 3 days (the last day was Match, 1; and I started to feel dry eye symptoms approx. on March 18-21). The more I was surprised when I found out that Azithromycin actually used to treat MGD...
So the question is: could antibiotics cause this? Or it is just some sudden change in my system... I ate as usual, did everything as usual, except antibiotics. I already got Omega 3 and planning to start using in to test its efficiency (I think I'm the very right candidate for it, and in the very right spot). BTW, I read here on forums one person with MGD stated that topical or systemic antibiotics always made him worse with a recovery for up to 8 month...
I was prescribed with warm compresses and self-massage, but I never mastered compresses and never quite felt they do anything except irritating my eyes (though after the hot shower or the sauna I frequently felt relief). The right eye gradually became better by itself, and at the end I generally did nothing to manage dry eye and MGD, except of a non-preservative drops in the right eye once before going to bed. Until now.
Recently, and quite abruptly, the condition of my eyes changed (mid-March). The right eye was brought back to where it was in my worst days - quite unbearable to do any screen time, and pretty bad being outside or in dry environments. And also I started to feel my left eye while walking outside. That was like a systemic effect, when the both eyes started to evaporate drastically faster, so that my right eye became a mess, and my left eye became very noticeable - the increased evaporation happened evenly and "in parallel" in both eyes. And also I started to notice that white foam in the outer corners of both eyes again.
I then started to research intensively and realised pretty fast what kind of beast (MGD) I'm dealing with. I read quite a lot here on forums and watched Dr. Korb's talks and now I have quite good understanding of the importance of MGD management. But also I wondered why the current change with my eyes happened so fast? I couldn't get my glands suddenly and evenly blocked/atrophied in parallel in both eyes - right? Again, it looked like some systemic reason that caused increased evaporation, and probably this reason affected the quality of my meibum. And then I found this: https://youtu.be/IJnFsPffN6I?t=3488 - Dr. Korb talking about saponification of tears and stating that the reason of it is meibum not being right quality.
So I started to think what might cause this and suddenly recalled that approximately half-month ago I ended the antibiotics treatment for pneumonia - I initially took Amoxicillin + Clavulanic acid (1000 mg) for 7 days, and then I took Azithromycin 500 mg for 3 days (the last day was Match, 1; and I started to feel dry eye symptoms approx. on March 18-21). The more I was surprised when I found out that Azithromycin actually used to treat MGD...
So the question is: could antibiotics cause this? Or it is just some sudden change in my system... I ate as usual, did everything as usual, except antibiotics. I already got Omega 3 and planning to start using in to test its efficiency (I think I'm the very right candidate for it, and in the very right spot). BTW, I read here on forums one person with MGD stated that topical or systemic antibiotics always made him worse with a recovery for up to 8 month...
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