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I was diagnosed with severe MGD. I only have 2 glands remaining. Aside from the scratchy, sandpaper feeling my eye feels extremely bone dry. But at my latest appointment they did a tear swab and said my eye is producing normal tears which makes no sense to me. Sometimes I feel like I have something else going on in my eye that the doctors have yet to diagnose. Can anyone explain this?
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Having MGD is the leading cause of dry eyes. I think it's ~85% of people have dry eyes due to MGD. Most is not due to aqueous tear deficiency.
Even though you have enough tears, the reason your eyes are still dry is because there is an insufficient amount of oil from your glands to mix with your tears, causing your tears to evaporate too quickly, so the surface of your eyeball is constantly exposed and not protected by a healthy layer of tears. A healthy tear layer protects the eyes from the elements...air, cold, dust, and even lighting like sunlight and harsh fluorescent and electronic device lighting. TBUT can be an indicator of the severity of evaporation. The average person has ~10-15 TBUT. During my worst years, I had a 0-1 TBUT, since I had severe MGD (and also ATD).
If you only have 2 remaining glands, I think I mentioned in another thread you started that sclerals lenses could help, if you are able to tolerate them. Even though I am much better now, I did lose some glands, so have some remaining dryness for which sclerals was the only way to help bridge that gap for me.Last edited by Hokucat; 06-Oct-2017, 08:32. -
That makes sense. I did go for a fitting for scleral lenses. They did not work out. I was going to try IPL but they said it is only for the bottom lid. All my discomfort is in the top lid. My bottom lid is fine. That really only leaves me with probing but I only have 2 glands to probe so I don't see it doing much. I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'm going to start trying things I read online; vitamins, honey, etc. I don't know what else to do.Comment
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Sorry the sclerals did not work out.
Did you already try:- Wrap around goggles/eye shields to wear outdoors and indoors to help reduce tear evaporation?
- Night goggles to wear to sleep to help reduce tear evaporation, especially if your eyes are not fully closed while sleeping?
- Genteal Severe Eye Gel? It stays on the eye longer, and was the only drop/gel that coated the surface of my eye to give me some temporary relief when I had no meibum. Often I would wear air shields or night goggles, and use the Genteal at the same time.
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First off I appreciate all the feedback! When you say goggles at night what are you referring to exactly? Can you give me a name or link to some I can buy. I bought some Genteal tears. I will try them. When I say my bottom lid is fine I just meant I have no discomfort there. It also is not functioning but all my discomfort is in the top lid of my left eye only. Isn't that odd? It makes me think sometimes that there could be another issue since it's only in one area rather than both lids or both eyes. I did lipiscan and it showed only 2 remaining glands. Both of which are not even full glands. So I imagine all glands are atrophied unless there is a more in depth scan that can be done that I dont know about.Comment
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No problem, I went through several years of severe dry eyes and know how debilitating it can be, so want to help where I can.
Examples of nighttime wear are TranquilEyes moisture goggles which utilize wet sponge inserts to help keep eyes moist, and EyeSeals 4.0 are goggles that keep the air out. I used TranquilEyes for several years, but recently switched to EyeSeals and find for me they work just as well and are more hygienic. You can get them at this forum's Dry Eye Shop:
https://www.dryeyeshop.com/mobile/ey...ucts-c122.aspx
I believe Lipiscan does show the structure of your glands. It's strange you only have two glands left in one eye, while your other eye is perfectly fine. And I agree it's a little odd that only your upper lid in that eye has discomfort. It does seem that there is some underlying condition causing only that eye to have such severe MGD. Have you seen more than one dry eye specialist on your condition?
If I think of anything else, will let you know. Hang in there.Comment
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I will try those goggles. I also just bought vitamin a, cod fish oil, and flax seed. I do have gland loss in my right eye. I have about 8 or 9 left but I have no discomfort in that eye. Right now I'm hoping there is some underlying condition that they haven't found yet and once it's found I may be able to find a proper treatment. I have 4 different eye doctors I'm seeing. I just googled all the doctors who specialize in dry eye and mgd. Of course they all contradict each other and tell me do or not do different things.Comment
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I know, it is tough trying to get to the root of the problem when all these dry eye specialists contradict each other, and typically recommend whichever treatment they offer in their office.
Ultimately I had exhausted almost every alternative, so only had IPL and probing left to try. I decided on my own to go with probing. I suspected I had stubborn blockage and scar tissue inside my glands, because over a few years, only a few glands secreted very thick like Crisco oil, and the rest nothing came out. I just felt probing could unblock both moderate and severe blockage including scar tissue, but IPL may only help with moderate blockage.
i think you are right to also try making changes to your diet and supplements now, as it can complement probing or other treatment, and can take awhile to find the diet changes that work for you. After my first four probe procedures, it did indeed unblock my glands each time and my eyes always felt a little better, but within a week would start to feel severely dry like before, likely because my oils were very little and thick. This was despite trying different diet changes each time. After the fifth probe two years ago when I started drinking fresh lemon juice in strong green tea 2x daily, my eyes felt more moist, and I have not needed another probing nor have had a debilitating dry eye day since then. For me this was a major turnaround.
I have since found research supporting the health benefits of the combination of lemon/green tea, and also supporting green tea helping meibum, TBUT, and ocular surface inflammation for those with MGD and evaporative dry eye. Given the main cause of my severe dry eyes was likely Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease, I think the antibacterial, antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties of the lemon/green tea combination somehow helped eliminate bad bacteria in my system, and gave it what it needed to function correctly. I'm not saying it will work for you, but here's a few articles, in case you're interested, since you are looking into diet and supplements:
http://uzziTea.tp://www.purdue.edu/u...rruzziTea.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5376801/Comment
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I will definitely try the probing next and I will also start drinking green tea. I'm also considering getting an allergy test just to be sure. And I hear other stories of people who find out there body is low on something or too high on something. One guy was high on metals and after detoxing from all the metals his eye improved. How do you even go about finding that. Am I able to get bloodwork or something like that done to test my body for everything to see if I'm low or high on something?Comment
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It was a naturopath I went to, who ordered tests for metal toxicity, and he also ran tests for nutritional deficiencies, autoimmune markers, and hormone levels. My rheumatologist ran tests for vitamin deficiencies, and very extensive tests for hormones and autoimmune disease (and continues to every 6 months). Some of these tests between the doctors overlapped, but given it was with the perspectives of different types of doctors, I felt testing-wise the scope was 99% covered. You could ask if your regular medical doctor can run these tests, but he/she may not be familiar with all these types or extensive levels of tests, and how to treat you, if something is flagged as an issue. It's good you also plan to get tested for allergies too.
The Purdue study link I posted earlier has shown the body only absorbs 20% of the antioxidants when drinking green tea by itself, but 80% when adding fresh lemon juice, so you may want to consider that. Other citrus like oranges and limes work too, but not as much as lemon, per the study.Comment
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That is something I will definitely add to the to do list is get all those tests done. How much lemon juice should I put in my tea? And just 1 teabag?Comment
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I squeeze in the juice from 1/6 of a medium/large organic Meyer lemon. I only use one tea bag, but tap it against the cup in warm water ~100 times to get the tea a strong dark green. The green tea you use should be more green than brown, as I've read brownish green tea means it's been over processed, so has less antioxidants. I personally have been using the Costco Kirkland Green Tea:
https://m.costco.com/Kirkland-Signat...100334938.html
I usually drink it 2x daily. If later in the day, I use Trader Joe's Decaf green tea or sometimes even chamomile tea, if right before bedtime.
Good luck. If anything, the lemon/tea has good overall health benefits.Last edited by Hokucat; 10-Oct-2017, 17:48.Comment
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