hi guys I'm dr. Alison young from the
eye surgeon Channel and today we're
going to be talking about one of the
most common questions I've been getting
during this quarantine time which is
what do I do with my red crusty eyelids
and what can I do from home so I don't
have to go to the eye doctor so today
we're going to talk about blepharitis
which is the usual culprit and some
really easy steps you can do from home
to get the eyes feeling a whole lot
better okay so let's talk about
blepharitis what is blepharitis
blepharitis is a very very common eyelid
condition that I see all the time caused
by an overgrowth of the bacteria that
live naturally on her skin you know we
all have bacteria living constantly on
the skin and most of the time they're
just living harmoniously they're not
causing any trouble but occasionally
they'll get overpopulated and when that
happens in the face that can give you
acne and when that happens around the
eyelids and eyelashes that's what we
call blepharitis so the most common
symptoms of blepharitis are redness
burning stinging the sensation that
something's always in the eye which we
appropriately call foreign body
sensation then when you wake up in the
morning you've got that little discharge
right in the corner of the eyes all of
these things are associated with
blepharitis so two main things we see in
eyelid anatomy with blepharitis so first
just for a little review this is a nice
normal healthy eyelid we've got lashes
that are nice and clean and directly
behind those eyelashes and most of us in
each or lives
we have about 10 to 15 oil glands and
the job of those oil glands is to
secrete that oil onto the surface of the
cornea so it keeps our tear film nice
and stable keeps the eyes feeling
comfortable keeps the vision nice and
sharp when those oil glands get plugged
as they often do in blepharitis they
cause a series of kind of a cascade of
effects so this is what it looks like
when they get plugged so instead of that
nice clean margin you've got all of
these little plugged oil glands
the skin around the oil glands gets kind
of congested and angry and swollen
that's what causes that soreness and
then without that oil freely flowing
onto the surface of the cornea our tears
evaporate too quickly and evaporative
dry eye starts to take effect and that's
what gives you a lot of the stinging and
burning so how do we treat this well if
you imagine all of these oil glands are
like a bunch of teeny tiny little sticks
of butter we need to melt that butter
and the easiest way to do that is with
heat and so a real simple thing you can
do without having to buy a thing is take
a washcloth that you already have at
home put it under the hot water wring it
out put it over the eyes for a few
minutes and that works ok the problem is
as you would imagine after just a few
seconds usually that washcloth is kind
of anticipating that heat you can't get
the heat to stay for very long and so
for that reason a lot of companies have
come up with some great little
microwavable masks like this one this is
a brand called a key soft but there's a
lot of different brands out there and
I'll mention a couple of them in the
description below so that you can check
those out if you'd like but this one's
nice it's very easy to use it has a
little elastic band and you just throw
it in the microwave for about 10 or 15
seconds make sure it's not too hot so
you don't burn yourself and then just
put that right over the surface of your
closed eyes and hold it there for about
5 to 10 minutes that's gonna melt all of
the oil that butter and allow that oil
to freely flow over the surface of the
eye and it feels really nice so it's a
nice easy trick to do at home so that's
going to take care of what we call
posterior blepharitis with just all of
those plugged oil glands but what about
all these crusty guys on the front this
is called anterior blepharitis and these
little crusts are called color X and
that's what gives you that sensation
that something's in the eye and that
you're always just kind of itching and
wanting to mess with the lids so to get
rid of this we use a dental analogy so
of course all of us you know would never
argue with our dentist that it's
appropriate to brush your teeth
morning and evening at the very least to
make sure that that buildup of plaque
and tartar is removed mechanically every
single day and similarly when this kind
of buildup builds up around the lids and
lashes we can also kind of do some lids
brushes lid scrubs this is again one
many different kinds of lid scrubs this
one's again by Aki soft but there's a
lot of different makers and basically
the gist is it's a small little
towelette that has soap that's safe to
use around the eyes and it's really
simple to use you just open the scrub
here's the little towelette it's got a
little bit of texture to it which is
nice really pull off all of this crust I
like to kind of wrap it around my index
finger and then with your eye closed
you're gonna start all the way up at
your brow and go back and forth until
you kind of feel that bony portion of
your orbit so from the top all the way
to the bottom of the eye then you'll
just flip it around and do the exact
same thing on the other eye and then
throw it away these are meant to be done
just the same time since you brush your
teeth so morning and evening is what I
typically recommend folks do this and if
you can get into that habit of doing
both the lid scrubs and the warm
compresses usually that takes care of
blepharitis for most people in general I
try to encourage patients to again think
about doing lid scrubs at the same time
that you're brushing your teeth so
morning and evening you should be doing
the lid scrubs the warm compresses which
are best done at nighttime I recommend
doing the warm compresses first for 5 to
10 minutes get all that oil coming out
and then finish cleaning the lids with
the lid scrub right before you go to bed
the reason I like to do the warm
compresses at nighttime is that as that
oil starts to open the glands open the
oil flows onto the front of the eye that
can blur you a little bit so if you try
to do that first thing in the morning
you might be a little frustrated with me
but if you do that right before you're
going to bed you're going to bed anyway
so it doesn't matter typically this will
resolve your symptoms sometimes
blepharitis can be you know especially
stubborn and patients will say you know
I'm doing all of these things regularly
and it's still not helping and that's
when we need to call in you know some of
the the bigger treatments including
medications either topical or oral
antibiotics sometimes a little mild
steroid drop or ointment there are
several in office procedures that we
have available for blepharitis as well
if needed those can certainly be the
topic for some other videos to come but
for now I just wanted to give you guys
two simple at home remedies for
blepharitis and hopefully that will have
everyone feeling better really soon all
right guys well thank you so much for
watching I hope that was
to help to you if you liked this video
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thanks and have a great day