Do you have any blinking exercise exercises that work?

[CJ L.]

Hello all,

I've got moderate MGD, which doesn't sounds awful relatively speaking, but is still impacting every waking minute of my life. My eye dr recommended among other things blinking exercises as I'm not fully blinking regularly. He recommended the 2/2/2 method which is open your eyes for two seconds, fully close them for two seconds and then squeeze close them for two seconds. Do this five to six times and repeat every hour.

It's just incredibly hard to re-program how we do something subconsciously. Does anyone have any ideas/methods/practices that have worked for them?

Thanks so much

CJ

[Guest]

I'm only starting to research this myself, and it seems like there are lots of different blinking exercise routines recommended, depending on the doctor - I guess they all have their favourite.

Now this is only a study on 10 patients, but the results are interesting... I'll post more studies if I find some: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/835318

[Guest]

http://draller.com/wp-content/upload...-Exercises.pdf <- this looks like it's the same as what your doc told you to do, but I'm sharing because there are some resources on there for apps that can help remind one to blink during computer use. I'm using one of the resources mentioned (Time Out for Mac) and it's excellent (and highly customizable in terms of how often you want breaks, how long, appearance of reminder, and so on.)

[Guest]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737109/ <- This one shows an image of normal MG's... mine look pretty good, but definitely NOT as good as the normal ones pictured. So I'm thinking perhaps there's hope that blinking exercises will help improve them further? Who knows... we'll see. At least this doesn't cost anything to try. Blephasteam Goggles have definitely improved my glands, but if my blinks are often incomplete (and I've been told they are, in the past) that's working against me. So, since blinking exercises should improve that situation, I'm going to dive in.

[Guest]

https://www.neco.edu/pdfs/general/KIOSD-Issue02.pdf

>>> "Many patients who use computers— nearly everyone in this day and age— have an incomplete blink or lid ...Blink exercises can help restore full lid closure and improve DED symptoms. ...Performing “blink exercises” at regular intervals throughout the day will eventually restore the natural full-closure blink, increase tear film meibum, reduce evaporative water loss, and improve dry eye symptoms (Figure 1)."

>>> "FIGURE 1 Performing blink exercises every 10 to 12 minutes for 30 days can restore the full blink. Pause, close eyes for two seconds, then open. Pause, close eyes for two seconds, squeeze eyes tight for two seconds, then open and relax."

I don't see anyone being fully compliant with such a regimen unless one has an app on their computer, and an alarm or something going off on one's phone as a reminder - it's too easy to get absorbed in whatever one is doing and forget to do the blinking exercises. So I think anyone attempting blinking exercises needs to get an app or timer to remind themselves to do it.

The idea of blinking exercises makes sense though... if one does them a LOT, you'd think muscle memory will start to kick in eventually and your body will naturally blink properly on its own eventually... seems like it's worth a try...