Dr Toyos

[dominorose]

Hi there,

I'm currently thinking about a trip to Memphis to meet Dr Toyos, but I wanted to know if anyone here had reviews on his IPL treatment ? It's a loooong trip for me so I want to make "sure" I'm not doing a mistake...

Thank you

[ebel]

I did long trips to Memphis to do this treatment. It didn’t help me. In reality, it made my eyes worse. Maybe it works for some, but, in my opinion, the promise is much bigger than the results.
You can check the papers he wrought and ask a dermatologist or any specialist that works with the intense pulse light to do it.
About the expression of the meibomian glands, you can ask an ophtalmologist to do it. But, I don’t believe it’s decisive (could it be harmful? That's a question). I prefer a light, good and regular massage on the eyelids.
I know I’m not encouraging you, but that’s just what I think from what I experienced.

[grant555]

IPL didn't help me at all. But i did not get it done with Dr. Toros - just someone who worked with him.

[LaDiva]

I would not travel from France for IPL. It did not help me much, but IPL did help clean out my clogged glands. You need maintenance treatments yearly, I think. The doctor who did my IPL was in CA, so it is not necessary to focus on Dr. Toyos, unless he is closer to you than the others or your doctor of choice. The doctor who did my IPL said that he was not sure how much it would help because I also have tear deficiency. He said that his big success stories only had plugged oil glands, and some had ocular rosacea. If you do not have enough tears, it is likely that IPL would help only marginally.

[dominorose]

No I have enough tears my diagnosis is ocular rosacea and MGD.

[LaDiva]

Then IPL might help. If you have rosacea, you also need to change your diet. Plan a vacation. It is too far to travel for only eye problems! (Smiling!)

[neilw]

Dominorose, depending on how severe you are and how blocked up your meibomian glands are, you will need a number of treatments. My wife did not feel any benefit from IPL with Dr Toyos until the 6th treatment. However, she started with meibum that was like toothpaste. Dr Toyos can video the gland expression so we were able to see that Kathy's meibum went from thick white toothpaste, to yellow liquidy butter (3rd or 4 treatment), to clear meibum (6th treatment). The treatments are about 4 weeks apart at this initial stage.
Once he gets you to this stage you will need regular maintenance treatments. Could be once a year or even once every 2 months (as for my wife).

However, you can have IPL in France with E-Eye. We are in Australia and Kathy initially saw Dr Toyos in 2013. Since the middle of 2014 Kathy has been having IPL here using the French E-Eye machine rather than Toyos's Dermamed device. We think that both devices do the job - perhaps one is better than the other but it is hard to tell and it would vary from patient to patient.

Certainly, Dr Toyos is the expert in IPL for MGD. He will treat you well. (He may denigrate the E-Eye machine and one would expect that as it was Toyos who "invented" IPL for dry eye so I guess he would feel his ideas have been "stolen". Best not to enter this debate, I feel. As I said, we think both devices work.)

Good luck.

PS We went to Franklin (near Nashville) for the treatments and we were very pleasantly surprised at how beautiful it was in this area. In fact we saw quite a lot of Tennessee during our time there and it is certainly a lovely state.