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Hi. I'm a 39 year old male from Netherlands and suffering from MGD.
I am looking for some advice based on my story, as I understand that treating dry eye/MGD/etc. is very personal and may require different strategy/trial & error for each individual
My story starts in 1997 (13 yo) when I in parallel developed acne rosacea, seborrheic dermatitis and the eye discomfort. As the eye problem only existed primarily at school I had much more focus on the skin issues, on which I only started treatment on eyes very late in the game. Thoughout the years it became slowly worse and worse and the main symptom was 'eye irritation'. From 2006 onwards it became very problematic (irritating eye lids, bloodshot eyes, TBUT most of time under 2s). After many doctor appointment etc. I got literally diagnosed by an ophtalmologist as "Eczema in the eye". I got prescribed Terracortril (antibiotic / cortison) which I could use as long as needed (like an infinite recipe) - I took it for 6 months straight (little did I know about side effects) and I was like reborn. It saved my life as I had the best 20's and 30's I could wish for (marry/kids/house/work/travel/party/go out/etc.).
In March 2022 when I started to go to work again after a 2 year 'lockdown' (and alot of screen time!!) I started feeling dry eyes again, after like 14 years. It quickly became worse and worse. I started trying to treat it with Terracortril (2 weeks) but it didn't do much. After some going back and forth I got diagnosed with MGD. I have like 18 glands in each eye and 6 were completely obstructed in each eye. I had 4 IPL's to have the obstructions cleared, but I still had/have many symptoms. From Nov 2022 to April 2023 I was on a 6 month doxycycline course (100 mg/day) which really gave me the best results in the past 18 months. I estimate to be on 75/80% and only had some sense of dry eye.
Currently I'm doing my daily blephasteam goggles twice a day. It helps me at least to keep my TBUT good. But after use of doxycycline it looks like a slow but steady downfall to worse. My eyes are dryish, sweaty, sticky, like there is diesel in my petrol engine (or vice versa). Like some kind of foreign body sensation by lack of and/or quality of the oil. I don't read much from anyone about the symptoms I have, so that makes me a little uncertain on this.
I read a lot about 40mg doxycycline (oracea/efracea) to support instead of 100mg. Are there any experiences on this? One can not go resistent on this? Also; I'm afraid I will never get off antibiotics as the downfall was so big when I stopped doxycycline. But, better a life on antibiotics then a housebound life without antibiotics. That's a very very easy choice.
Are there also experiences on eye drops? I use Systane Complete now which is the best drop I found to date. The issue I have with the drops is that the feeling is gone after like a matter of minutes. Systane gives me some prelonged relief, but not that much more. Is this what Punctum plugs could help out?
Thanks for reading and any advice that could come!
I am looking for some advice based on my story, as I understand that treating dry eye/MGD/etc. is very personal and may require different strategy/trial & error for each individual
My story starts in 1997 (13 yo) when I in parallel developed acne rosacea, seborrheic dermatitis and the eye discomfort. As the eye problem only existed primarily at school I had much more focus on the skin issues, on which I only started treatment on eyes very late in the game. Thoughout the years it became slowly worse and worse and the main symptom was 'eye irritation'. From 2006 onwards it became very problematic (irritating eye lids, bloodshot eyes, TBUT most of time under 2s). After many doctor appointment etc. I got literally diagnosed by an ophtalmologist as "Eczema in the eye". I got prescribed Terracortril (antibiotic / cortison) which I could use as long as needed (like an infinite recipe) - I took it for 6 months straight (little did I know about side effects) and I was like reborn. It saved my life as I had the best 20's and 30's I could wish for (marry/kids/house/work/travel/party/go out/etc.).
In March 2022 when I started to go to work again after a 2 year 'lockdown' (and alot of screen time!!) I started feeling dry eyes again, after like 14 years. It quickly became worse and worse. I started trying to treat it with Terracortril (2 weeks) but it didn't do much. After some going back and forth I got diagnosed with MGD. I have like 18 glands in each eye and 6 were completely obstructed in each eye. I had 4 IPL's to have the obstructions cleared, but I still had/have many symptoms. From Nov 2022 to April 2023 I was on a 6 month doxycycline course (100 mg/day) which really gave me the best results in the past 18 months. I estimate to be on 75/80% and only had some sense of dry eye.
Currently I'm doing my daily blephasteam goggles twice a day. It helps me at least to keep my TBUT good. But after use of doxycycline it looks like a slow but steady downfall to worse. My eyes are dryish, sweaty, sticky, like there is diesel in my petrol engine (or vice versa). Like some kind of foreign body sensation by lack of and/or quality of the oil. I don't read much from anyone about the symptoms I have, so that makes me a little uncertain on this.
I read a lot about 40mg doxycycline (oracea/efracea) to support instead of 100mg. Are there any experiences on this? One can not go resistent on this? Also; I'm afraid I will never get off antibiotics as the downfall was so big when I stopped doxycycline. But, better a life on antibiotics then a housebound life without antibiotics. That's a very very easy choice.
Are there also experiences on eye drops? I use Systane Complete now which is the best drop I found to date. The issue I have with the drops is that the feeling is gone after like a matter of minutes. Systane gives me some prelonged relief, but not that much more. Is this what Punctum plugs could help out?
Thanks for reading and any advice that could come!
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