Examined my own eyelid

[IanJ]

Hi,

Was about to carry out my daily eyelid massage in-front of the mirror tonight and decided to have a good look at my eyelids.
As many of you may know (I've ranted on about my eyes plenty times!) have some kind of lacrimal gland dysfunction in my right eye (and MGD in both), my right eye doesn't produce much tears. Certainly hardly any through normal tear secretion, but I can produce some tears through yawning...but not much.

Anyways, I noticed along the lid margin on my right upper eyelid and towards the nose half there appear to be small white'ish spots....almost equal-spaced....probably about 4 or 5 of them, and they kinda look a little inflamed. I can see them if I pull the eyelid up and get real close to the mirror with a small torch.

My left eye certainly doesn't have these, it's much cleaner looking.

I've never noticed them before, and I don't think my eye doc has.......I've got an appointment by luck this coming week to get a new 3-month plug fitted.......so I'm really looking forward to seeing what he can see. Hopefully he'll take some photos and I can post here.

Ian.

[indrep]

I think those are the ducts to your meibomian glands.

[IanJ]

I think those are the ducts to your meibomian glands.

Aren't those on the bottom?

Ian.

[indrep]

You actually have them on top and bottom,

[IanJ]

Gotcha.....I see the lacrimal ducts here. Looks like I thought they were on the other side.

[brd888]

Could be infamous white blockages of lacrimal glands.

[Rebecca Petris]

Look anything like this?

[indrep]

The meibomian glands secrete along the lid margin known as the tarsus.

The lacrimnal glands actually secrete through the conjunctiva. The lacrimal gland you show in the picture is superior temporal and is really the "reserve" lacrimal gland, used mainly for flushiong the eye when a foreign body is present or percieved to be. The accessory lacrimal glands, Wolfring and Krauss, are found in the conjuctiva along the inside of the lids. These glands are responsible for your normal, steady state tear film.

Thats a good picture Rebecca and I have some of the lower lid as well. Grays Anatomy has some good drawings of eye structure unfortunately it can be somewhat difficult to find exactly what you are looking for.

[brd888]

[QUOTE=indrep]The lacrimnal glands actually secrete through the conjunctiva.... The accessory lacrimal glands, Wolfring and Krauss, are found in the conjuctiva along the inside of the lids. These glands are responsible for your normal, steady state tear film.QUOTE]

Sure about that, indrep? I thought the conjunctiva is the white surface of the eyeball which secretes mucus through goblet cells.?

[IanJ]

>The lacrimal gland you show in the picture is superior temporal and is
>really the "reserve" lacrimal gland, used mainly for flushiong the eye
>when a foreign body is present or percieved to be.

In my right eye, this gland works for the most part.

>The accessory lacrimal glands, Wolfring and Krauss, are found in the
>conjuctiva along the inside of the lids. These glands are responsible
>for your normal, steady state tear film.

These are the ones that fail for me....I think!

I can tear if I yawn, cry or am out on a windy golf-course....not quite as much as my left eye, but I can tear.
I feel it's the accessory glands that are down on tears meaning I dry up quite readily.......or, if the ducts are shared as I used to think (major and accessory) that my ducts are blocked and need forcing by yawning.......a bit like a blocked hose pipe that needs that extra pressure to push water through.

PS. Was at the doc tonight about a different matter.....but had a word with him about Restasis......he just shook his head and said don't hold out any hope short term......he also said he didn't know if I would be able to get the chemist to "make up" something for me (as I've read here somewhere).

Ian.

[indrep]

brd,
The white part of your globe is the sclera, the conjunctiva is the translucent tissue that covers the sclera. Yes the conj. is responsible for goblet cell replacement and the mucin. The conj. also covers the inside of the lids, this is where the accessory lacrimal glands secrete the aqueous as well as the "resereve" lacrimal gland.

Ian,
Because the conj. has less dense cellular structure it is first to suffer from ocular surface inflammation and the glands that are most affected early would likely be the Wolfring and Krause glands. This could explain you "steady state" deficiency.