Clean the eye lids

[jazhou]

As a DES sufferer, I finally know what has caused my dry eyes. It is ocular rosacea. My doctor suggest I should do warm compress and eye lids massage twice a day. I follow the instruction on home eye spa in the book of Dr. Latkany. But when I press my eyelids using cotton swab, I dont really see anything like pimple coming out. Am I doing it right? Thanks

[untkicker29]

I have asked several doctors this including Dr. Latkany, and they all say that it would be very difficult to see any oil expressing out of the glands with the naked eye. Just do the proper lid hygeine and let the doctors check out the glands under the slit lamp.

[brd888]

Hello

As a DES sufferer, I finally know what has caused my dry eyes. It is ocular rosacea. My doctor suggest I should do warm compress and eye lids massage twice a day. I follow the instruction on home eye spa in the book of Dr. Latkany. But when I press my eyelids using cotton swab, I dont really see anything like pimple coming out. Am I doing it right? Thanks

Hi.
Which dry eye specialist did you see?
I think this is a sticky subject. Warm compresses and lid massage are supposed to release blocked glands. However, your meibomian glands may not be obviously blocked or infected. So the lid hygiene procedure may not give obvious benefits. Unless you have toothpaste consistency meibum the benefits are more subtle.
Regards,
Bruce

[jazhou]

Hi.
Which dry eye specialist did you see?
I think this is a sticky subject. Warm compresses and lid massage are supposed to release blocked glands. However, your meibomian glands may not be obviously blocked or infected. So the lid hygiene procedure may not give obvious benefits. Unless you have toothpaste consistency meibum the benefits are more subtle.
Regards,
Bruce

I saw Dr. Latkany a couple days ago. He asked me to do warm compresses 3 minutes before cleaning the eyelids.

[jimmylh]

When you clean the eyelids, is that only upper or lower eyelids?
I am in Melbourne, Australia and can't find any specialist in dry eyes, the only thing they do is punctal plugs and basically just tell you to go home and deal with it.

Thanks
Jimmy

[bassfan]

Jimmy

You are "supposed" to do the upper and lower as there are MG's on both. Its kind of hard to do the uppers though, but Im starting to get the hang of it without touching my eyeball.

Australia is surely worse, but there aren't even a lot of opthamologists here in the US that know anything useful about dry eye. I imagine I know more than most just from this site and other info on the web. I would recommend you get your hands on Dr Latkany's new book. Its very informative. Its on amazon...although I have no idea if you can get it down under.

Daren