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Are your eyes bothering you? Not just the occasional dryness or redness, but regular
discomfort and irritation that can get in the way of living your normal life? You may
have Meibomian Gland Dysfunction or Evaporative Dry Eye. Think about the treatments you’ve
tried in the past to get some relief, and think about the compromises you have to make
every day, and the lifestyle issues you face. Maybe it’s not wearing contact lenses, or
limiting your computer time. Even just reading a book or enjoying a breezy spring day may
be out of the question. Any of this sound familiar? If so, you should know that eye
experts have recently made great strides in understanding Evaporative Dry Eye. And with
the introduction of the breakthrough technology in the LipiFlow system, it may be possible
to make the discomfort, inconvenience and limitations of evaporative dry eye a thing
of the past. Your tears are made up of three layers: the mucin layer that adheres to the
eye, the aqueous, or water layer and the lipid or oil layer, which lubricates and prevents
evaporation. Until now, much of the focus of dry eye treatment has been on supplementing
the tear film with the use of drops and ointments, however, 65% of patients with dry eye symptoms
actually suffer from evaporative dry eye. The lipid layer is created by meibomian glands
in the eyelid. When you blink, pressure is put on the glands and lipids are released.
Evaporative dry eye disease is most often caused by a blockage or obstruction in these
glands called meibomian gland dysfunction, which can lead to a lipid deficiency in the
tears and cause symptoms such as watering, gritty feeling in the eyes and itching. To
treat the blocked glands, your physician may have directed you to apply heat near the meibomian
gland by using warm compresses on your eye lids. However, the tarsal plate, a layer of
cartilage that provides natural protection around the eye, effectively prevents this
heat from reaching the gland. With the breakthrough LipiFlow system, your doctor now has a new
way to treat meibomian gland dysfunction or evaporative dry eye. And if your doctor determines
you are a good candidate for LipiFlow treatment, he or she can take advantage of this technology
to treat you right in his or her office. Unlike warm compresses, the LipiFlow system applies
a combination of heat from the inside of the lid, near the meibomian glands and gentle
pressure on the outside of the lid, designed to liquefy blockages in the glands. LipiFlow
is entirely different from any other treatment we’ve had before for meibomian gland disease
because it gives exactly the treatment that’s needed, right where it’s needed. We take
heat, and we put pressure right on the meibomian glands to epress those glands and to remove
the inspisated secretions that are blocking the flow, and it restores natural flow in
a very natural way. What we’re achieving with the LipiFlow is applying the heat very
precisely to that area that needs it the most. On average, LipiFlow patients had a statistically
significant improvement in their symptoms. It was horribly uncomfortable, a feeling like
my eyes were scratched, I couldn’t where my contacts much, I was continually putting
drops in, I just had so many problems with my eyes, it was brutal. It’s made a huge
difference, I now only use drops once in a blue moon, I can wear my contacts, it’s
very exciting. This has made a huge, huge difference. By the end of the day wearing
contact lenses my eyes were uncomfortable. Pretty much every evening I used some kind
of eye drop to ease the burning and discomfort. After the treatment, I realized I hadn’t
needed to put eye drops in at the end of the day. And we finally have a treatment that
can be done as an outpatient, in the physician’s office, delivered by the physician and their
assistants to give patients a meaningful improvement in their disease. In a clinical study at four
weeks after treatment, 79% of patients reported improvement in dry eye symptoms. To determine
if you are a candidate for LipiFlow treatment, your doctor will examine the meibomian gland
openings in your eyelids. The LipiView allows us to document over time an evaluation of
the tear film. The LipiView takes approximately 20 seconds of video of your eye during a non-invasive
in office exam that lasts less than five minutes. This is really a new step in the direction
of assessing the quality of someone’s tears, before the damage is done. With the introduction
of LipiFlow technology, effective treatment of evaporative dry eye is possible. This treatment
is going to revolutionize the management of these patients. Patients that really are quite
desperate from a process that has developed over the past several decades where we just
really have not had effective treatment to offer them until now. Talk to your doctor
about your symptoms and ask for a LipiFlow brochure, it could be the first step on your
journey toward breakthrough relief.