What to do with meibography results?

[wissen1]

Hey,

I just recently got a meibography at the optician. About 50% of my meibomian glands are already lost. So what does that tell me now? How can I put these results to any good use? I'm just 30 years old and this it seems like this is pretty bad for my age. But then again if this wasn't the case, I probably wouldn't suffer from dry eyes. ;-)

Any experts? What do you think? Pictures here: http://imgur.com/a/nc9YH
Upper lid looks about the same. Shortened and 3-4 dropouts.

[MGD1701]

Hi
Maybe it is good to

1) identify root causes (Vit. D, A, partial blinking, Omeg 3, ...etc.)

2) do warm compress, massage, lid scrubs at home - dr did not tell you all these?

3) omeg 3: make sure you have enough as it is important for MGD

4) good to know if your oil is clear like olive or toothpaste, if all glands are open/blocked so you know what available treatment options are - LipiFlow, probing, IPL, BlephEx etc.

if you a frequent computer user, do blinking exercise.

[wissen1]

1) still looking for cause
2) I do
3) I do
4) I have an appointment in august where the doctor will check my oil quality

So is the shortening of the MG reversible? Will it get worse no matter if I do lid hygiene? How bad is it actually for me?

[MGD1701]

As far as I know
1) when glands are gone/short, we can NOT get them back - all you can do just to KEEP rest ALIVE/healthy.

2) what important is to keep inflammation under control or more glands might die.
3) warm compress, massage, lid hygiene are all important but NOT easy to master - spend more time to master.

[wissen1]

As far as dry eyes and especially blepharitis, we live in the stone age in germany. First thing is to find a doctor who even knows about this stuff. I think I got a good one now and I'll get my glands probed this year. Too bad my inital appointment is in august and if I'm suited for the probing, I'll have to wait again. I don't know how fast you have to act until the glands dry up even more...
Check what I just found, sounds promising: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/27755193/
Question is if there's any additional benefit after 4 weeks of treatment or if it'll stabilize at this point.

[pythonidler]

I agree with MGD1701 - as far as I know, you can't recover atrophied meibomian glands. Regarding the article you linked to - the term "reverse" isn't clear to me. I'm not sure if it means that you can regenerate the glands, or if you can only stop them from further atrophying.

Still, it's very important to try to preserve the glands that you have left. Taking daily omega-3 pills and doing warm compresses are a good start.

I'm not sure how much probing would help someone who don't have a lot of glands, but I'd still tell you to go for it. IMO, It's worth investigating virtually any and all treatment options, as long as there's a chance it can give you relief.

[k1mihai]

wissen1, what Dr did you find in germany to do the probing ?