A word about those MGs

[Rebecca Petris]

I am feeling a little concerned at the extent to which meibomian gland treatment is dominating discussion here of late.

I know discussions about all kinds of things have a natural ebb and flow on the board, but while this one is flowing I just want to remind those in the thick of it that your tear system is not defined solely by your meibomian glands and their health or lack thereof.

When meibomian gland disease exists, then yes, it needs treatment. For some, successful treatment of the MGs may be pivotal to regaining health and comfort for their eyes - but not for all. Statistically, a majority of us have more going on than MGD; for some, much more. Sometimes MGD is the lowest hanging fruit for doctor and patient - the most obvious and most treatable disease. But it's been proven over and over that correcting it does not necessarily have a one-to-one relationship with feeling better. Just as there are many people with a preponderance of nonfunctional meibomian glands who have no symptoms, so there are people with lots of symptoms who have MGs in, overall, not such bad shape. Maybe almost all of us have MGD in some degree - but don't forget that a lot of people who have no eye pain do too.

All I mean to say with this is that unless you know you have NOTHING else going on that you can do anything about, be cautious about investing all your emotions, money and time into MGD treatment.

There are a lot of other things to consider, after all. These include but are not limited to:

- Deficiencies of the rest of the tear film - aqueous and mucin
- Eyelid closure issues from surgery or from disease
- Allergy, allergy, allergy - and sorting chickens from eggs
- Auto-immune disease which is behind a great deal of dry eye
- Hormone imbalances, ditto
- How to promote eye comfort and health with all the many, many natural means currently available
- Nutrition and attending to your body's true needs
- Environment - investigating such factors as office air, humidity levels, laundry detergents, pillows etc
- Being carefully observant of the actual effects of ANYTHING you put in your eyes, including all prescription and over the counter drops, because of the possibility of unwittingly making things worse with preservatives or polymers that your eyes are sensitive too or that you may be overdosing on
- and so on, and so forth

When dry eye symptoms are persistent and even disabling, it's too easy to start seeing yourself as a pair of disembodied eyeballs or even reduce it down further to meibomian glands or some other component. But we are whole people too.

My 2 cents for the day.

[Another Sarah]

Thanks for this. As a 'newbie' who has been obsessing over my MGs, I found this post really helpful. Am currently washing my bedding in a mild washing liquid to explore that option!

[indrep]

Rebecca, this is a very informative post. My experience has proven time and again that most people have multiple factors contributing to the discomfort and visual disturbances. The therapy required to find comfort and visual stability seems to be unique to every person and time to allow it to work is absolutely required. I relate it cooking, there is a special recipe of therapy for each person and how long it cooks depends on the oven. The goal is to have a good cook who works with you to perfect the recipe.

[socratese]

This has bothered me some as well. I have finally got over the stage of believing its just my meibomian glands. The reason I used to think, and I believe other people as well, that its just the meibomian gland is because when you go to a local doctor they will most likely say its either blepharitis or meibomian gland disease or both. I've had some more prestigious doctors only blame my meibomian glands. I finally found out, for myself, that it was more than that after my secretions improved but my pain did not.

people can just go by what their doctors know and tell them. and as we know, most doctors are in the dark on this whole subject. and, actually, medical science as a whole is in the dark on these issues.. the dark ages. This is why I have started threads, polls etc to help me and others try to get an idea of other causes and root causes. I just have to be careful not to say any new info is 100% definite or fact even if it is preached by doctors that I revere as being fact.

I think a couple big things people have to remember is that there are issues with other parts of the eye that can cause MGD to appear, and that they have to be their own doctor, researcher, and nurse along with the help of real doctors.