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How does one know if rosacea or mgd is caused by the mites, I get the bug crawling sensation in my face sometimes.. have you guys been tested??
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Hello Moni. That is a burning question (excuse the pun) that has been the subject of a lot of research. There is a lot of medical literature and anecdotal evidence out there showing that demodex mites can produce symptoms associated with both cutaneous and ocular rosacea [1]. In my opinion there are two key findings:
1. An over proliferation of demodex mites (demodecosis) can cause inflammation and some studies have shown a greater number of these mites in rosacea skin compared control subjects, others have not.
2. People with rosacea are more likely to react to a bacterium that lives inside these mites.
(http://www.rosacea.org/press/archive/20040503.php)
The most common finding in patients with above normal demodex infestation of the eyelids is crusting on the eyelashes and madarosis. However Deomdex brevis can live inside the Meibomian glands with not ‘crusting’ of anterior lid. Anyway you could determine the prevalence of demodex folliculorum in your eyelash follicles yourself. Then you can work on eliminating them to see if you’re symptoms improve – this is not that easy to do as most treatments are highly irritating to the eyes.
First remove a sample of eyelashes (say 6) and then examine them under a microscope. Google will show you what they look like. I use a Viliny electronic microscope that cost me $80 US. Then work on reducing the mite numbers (Google will tell you how to do this) over a period of a month. If you have had an improvement in symptoms it is not necessarily due to treating the mites – the treatments will reduce other potentially etiologic factors as well (eg bacterial endotoxins) – so test for the mites again. After doing this a few times you may notice a correlation between symptoms and mite levels – and hopefully the epilated lashes will quickly grow back.
Or just ask a doc to test you. I’m personally on the fence as to whether this is worth doing – in my case I only found one mite and used tea tree shampoo with no noticeable improvement. However you’re case may be different and I haven’t tested my meibum for Demodex brevis either. Also I haven’t even been diagnosed with ocular rosacea, but instead mgd with significant inflammation of posterior lid and conjunctiva which are the same symptoms.
[1] Association of Rosacea with Demodicosis; Hamideh Moravvej MD*, Mohammad Dehghan-Mangabadi MD*, Mohammad-Reza Abbasian MD*, Gita Meshkat-Razavi MD•*
Sorry I don’t have time to fully reference my response right now.
A video of how to test the skin for demodex mites:
http://www.demodexsolutions.com/
Good luck
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