Cured from MGD - My Story

[Tankie]

Hello. My heart goes out to you who suffer from dry eyes. I lived a normal happy life until I was 20 when it first started for me. I am now 30, but I managed to more or less cure myself by the time I reached 26. I still struggle a little, but I am able to play sports, work a job, go to the movie theater, and I can go for hours where I don't even notice anything is wrong. The pain never hits even moderate levels any more, and I just need to take breaks and do blinking exercises sometimes.

I tried all the treatments like LipiFlow (which was brand new that year), eyelid surgery to fix a slightly incorrect blink, punctal plugs in all 4 ducts, and just about every eye drop there was.

I do not know the details of your problems, but I thought I would share with you what worked for me. I have MGD (meibomian gland dysfunction).

#1) I moved away from my parents house when I was 25. I believe the dust in their house did not help the problem, and when I return there for holidays my eyes are always in bad shape after a few days. I now live in a place with laminate floors where the dust doesn't collect. My parents house was carpet in nearly every room.
#2) I started driving all the time for work. When I would drive, I would use my car heater and aim it at my face. This might sound like a bad idea but hear me out. I would use it as my own private lipiflow. So I would have the heat coming at me, and I would constantly do blinking exercises while driving and try to sometimes excrete the glands with my fingers. To this day I still do this, and I believe it helps a lot.
#3) I got all 4 punctal plugs. A lot of people try plugs, but they only get 2. When I got all 4 done, it was the first time in a long time I felt pain free. I had so many tears in my eyes due to them not being able to drain away that they eventually started overflowing constantly throughout the day and I got a bit of a rash on my face. I had to get the top 2 plugs removed due to the large quantity of tears in my eyes and the rash they were causing, but this was the first time I knew that I could feel fine, and during that time when I had all 4 plugs I believe it allowed my eyes to heal enough that I was able to get by on just 2 plugs afterwards.
#4) Learn to make blinking exercises a constant habit. Especially in the morning, I often have to look away from screens and do big blinks to help the glands excrete their oils.
#5) Minimize screen time. If screen time is a must for you, I'd suggest trying to do lots of blinking exercises in between, looking away frequently, and taking breaks where you completely rest your eyes with them closed from time to time.

I hope this helps some of you! Feel free to message me if there's anything I can do to help you. I just activated email notifications so that I'll receive any messages from this post or private messages. Good luck!

Alastair

[MGD1701]

Hi Tankie

Thanks for sharing. That is indeed very kind of you.

1) Car heater: Do you also put some water when you turn on the heater?

2) punctal plugs: Did you also have water problem?

3) what other treatments did you do and their order? Did you also do BlephEx, probing, expression?

4) midnight pain: if you also suffered from such pain, any tips for us? Sometimes I feel just a few minutues before waking up/opening eyes, I feel eye stick to cornea.

5) 'big' blinks - what do you mean by that?

Thanks again!

[Tankie]

Hi Tankie

Thanks for sharing. That is indeed very kind of you.

1) Car heater: Do you also put some water when you turn on the heater?

2) punctal plugs: Did you also have water problem?

3) what other treatments did you do and their order? Did you also do BlephEx, probing, expression?

4) midnight pain: if you also suffered from such pain, any tips for us? Sometimes I feel just a few minutues before waking up/opening eyes, I feel eye stick to cornea.

5) 'big' blinks - what do you mean by that?

Thanks again!

1) I only use the car heater. What I do is a scroll all the side vents so that they are shut off. With the two middle vents in my car, I am them upward and towards my face. I usually just put the heat on the highest setting, but that might depend on how good the heater is in the car someone else drives. I press the air conditioning and the recycle air button as well if that makes any difference.

2) When I had all 4 plugs, tears would overflow. Once I got the top plugs removed, I no longer had the overflow problem. I didn't have water problems in terms of a lack of tears, only MGD.

3) I don't know if I can tell you the order I did everything in, but in terms of what I've tried, it would include the following: eye drops, lacri lube, steroid eye drops, doxycycline, surgery to fix a slight incorrect blink (lagophthalmos), LipiFlow, hot compresses, humidifier in bedroom, wearing goggles to trap moisture near eyes, expressing glands with fingers, using lid wipes and carefully expressing glands with a Q-tip, cutting down screen time, blinking exercises, and praying. That's about all I can think of right now. There could be a few that I've forgotten, but I went through a very rough 6 years.

4) I'm sure you've probably tried these, but cleaning away any crusty debris from your sleep. Possibly doing a hot compress or having a shower and letting the hot water hit your eyelids with your eyes closed. Put eye drops in, and try to avoid screen time until you wake up and have your eyes running if that makes sense. Maybe exercising in the morning could help.

5) By big blinks, I mean when I squeeze more hard with my blink than a normal blink. Sometimes I will close my eyes for a few seconds, maybe push on the eyelids a bit with my eyes closed to try to excrete oil, and then blink fairly hard (but not too hard otherwise you might do damage).

I hope that was helpful and answered your questions!

Alastair

[MGD1701]

Hi Alastair

Thanks a lot for your prompt reply. For me, I eat lots of nuts for Omeg 3, 6. Vit. E. etc.
I did LipiFlow (which did not help much) and plan to do BlephEx, Lid Margin debridement, probing or expression shortly.

I still keep learning/exploring new things & found out the regimens my doctors told me were incorrect!
My eyes are pretty good today (i.e. no more watering), even the humility is 49.

Lastly, thanks again for sharing and congratulations!!

[farmgirl]

HI Tankie: So good to hear from you and I am so happy that you are doing so much better. For those of you who are interested in blink exercises here is a link to a site with illustrations....

care-information/blinking-exercishttps://www.youreyesite.com/eye-es/

I too am doing ever so much better, thanks to this forum, probably 80% better than before. I also had a surgery on one eye to help with a weak blink which exacerbates my Sjogrens. I may have the other eye done as this one is so much better.

Keep up the good work, I hope it stays....cheers....F/G

[Blessed19]

Hi Tankie, I hope you’re still reading this. I’ve been suffering with blepharitis since I had a blepharoplasty and ended with minor lagophthalmos. My blink is not complete. Do you think your surgery to fix this really helped fixing your problem? I’m thinking about it. Please let me know, thanks Tankie!!

[Fenix]

Hi Tankie , thank you for sharing your story. Just some questions: what kind of diet did you do during the dry eye years? did you changed it to an healtier one? did you take some supplements like omega3 and probiotics?

[Guest]

Hi Tankie, I hope you’re still reading this. I’ve been suffering with blepharitis since I had a blepharoplasty and ended with minor lagophthalmos. My blink is not complete. Do you think your surgery to fix this really helped fixing your problem? I’m thinking about it. Please let me know, thanks Tankie!!

It's hard to say for sure if the surgery fixed my problem. However, it certainly did not hurt the problem, and I believe at a minimum improved my condition.

I really believe it was the warm air from my car Air vents melting the clogged oil in my glands that had the biggest impact on allowing me to live a happy healthy life.

[Guest]

Hi Tankie , thank you for sharing your story. Just some questions: what kind of diet did you do during the dry eye years? did you changed it to an healtier one? did you take some supplements like omega3 and probiotics?

I remember taking fish oil capsules. Other than that, I think I didn't do too much other than eat reasonably healthy, exercise a few times per week, and keep screen time to an absolute minimum.

By the way this is Tankie (both in this post and the above one). I just received this message in my email but didn't log into my account since I'm on my cell phone.

[Guest]

I have never posted to a blog, so I wanted to offer some advice as this has greatly affected our life. So my 8 year old daughter has had chronic chalazions which would cause her eyes to turn red because of inflammation. I was going insane using different drops and treatments. She was on Restatsis, artifical drops, hot eye mask twice a day for 10 and 15 minutes, and tea tree oil wipes. Nothing was working! We did this for a year and she was still getting weekly chalazions and styes. I read online how some people with MGD have high cholesterol and high triglycerides which runs in my family. I have never been a healthy eater but if it could cure my daughter eye sight I was all in and so was my husband! I decided a week later to become vegan. I kid you not, after two weeks of starting that diet her eye lids have not clogged. It has been six months and nothing new has developed. It is amazing. Honestly I have always hated vegatables and love meat but if it is going to make my daughter's eyes suffer. Its gone! I hope someone on here at least tries this and it works for them. I really watch saturated fats and try to eat as green as possible. PLEASE TRY IT at least for two weeks. You will see a difference.

[Guest]

There is no cure for dry eyes, you just found the treatment that works for you.Which you are very lucky as treating this disease is a lot of trial and error.If you stopped doing those things, your eyes would probably feel bad again.