How you can help treat Meibomian Gland Dysfunction at home

You – the patient – can help treat your Meibomian gland dysfunction externally heating the meibomian glands, followed by massage and expression of meibum. You can do this at home, with heating with a warm compress and then subsequently massaging and cleaning your eyelids with Blephasol solution.
If you’re unfamiliar with Meibomianitis, you’ll learn what it is in this video:

Video: Meibomianitis explained

There are also Clinica London based treatments that can complement the home lid care and hygiene regime of heating and massage.
Clinic-based treatments consist of external thermal application either with pulsation or just heat massage. We call the pulsation treatment LipiFlow and the heating and massage followed by expression MiBo Thermoflo, or MiBoFlo.
We do the MiBoFlo treatments at 3 to 4 repeated sessions. However, thermal pulsation with thermal LipiFlo shows that a single session is as effective as using warm compresses twice daily for three months.
This outcome leads people to think that thermal pulsation may be a good option and a substitute for doing home treatment, but I am afraid I cannot agree, as daily warm compresses and cleaning at home can only help in the long term.
Thermal pulsation treatment is expensive and therefore cheaper options have been introduced such as MiBo Thermoflo where a warm metal plate is placed on the eyelids with a cupping gel and heats the eyelids from the external surface up to 42 degrees, and then the eyelid operator does the meibomian gland expression at the slit lamp.
This approach has not been subjected to rigorous scientific studies but is being used routinely in practice recommended as courses, the frequency of which is titrated to the degree of meibomian gland dysfunction.
I have seen very severe meibomian gland dysfunction turn around within four weeks by having intense home eyelid care with Omega 3 supplements and weekly Mibo Thermoflo and Lymecycline tablets. It can become manageable and symptomatically very much improved from four weeks onwards.
Normally, for meibomian gland dysfunction, we would recommend a course of three to four MiBo Thermoflo treatments within the first eight weeks, while the other treatments are being instigated including the antibiotics of anti-inflammatory action.
I believe that no one treatment is effective for meibomian gland dysfunction and dry eye disease, but should be multi-pronged with different treatments that complement each other to help improve the balance of the ocular surface and tear film until the treatment option can be reduced to more manageable daily maintenance.
At Clinica London, we do provide MiBo Thermoflo treatments which are done by the nurses in our Aesthetic and Medical Treatment Room. Patients liken the experience to having an eyelid spa treatment as it is delightful and relaxing and the eyes feel a lot better afterwards.