- Hey guys, 20 million Americans have thyroid disease.
Almost half of them have thyroid eye disease.
If you'd like to learn more about it, stick around.
(upbeat music)
All right guys, I'm Joel Hayden.
Welcome to the Eye Care and Wellness Channel
where we talk about all things optometry,
wellness, and how to take care of your eyes
and yourself for the rest of your life.
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Talking about thyroid eye disease,
the acronym you may see somewhere
is called TED, obviously enough.
Of all the symptoms of thyroid eye disease,
they are redness, dryness, and watery eyes.
And they all go together with dry eye disease,
which is the number one symptom
for thyroid eye disease.
So at the end, I'm gonna talk
about how to treat the dry eye
when you have thyroid eye disease.
So with the moderate thyroid eye disease,
you get the bags under the eyes,
the swelling around the eyes,
and you've probably seen
that upper eyelid area swells up more,
and then of course you can get
some light sensitivity, as well.
And I would classify those as moderate symptoms.
And if you're having moderate symptoms,
or if you're having mild symptoms, you really should
be seeing an eye doctor, but definitely
if you're having moderate symptoms
and then by the time we get to the severe symptoms
you're gonna know that you definitely should
be seeing an eye doctor.
The severe symptoms for thyroid eye disease
include bulging of the eyes
which almost gives away it's a thyroid issue.
What happens is the extraocular muscles
that wrap around the eyeball swell
and push the eye forward.
So you can have the bulging look of the eyes,
you can have double vision,
and then you can have pain around the eyes
especially upon moving them around.
So those are the symptoms of thyroid eye disease.
Now let's talk about what you can do
if you are one of the millions of people
who are experiencing the dry eyes
from thyroid eye disease.
So when it comes to treating dry eyes,
it's very similar across the board
no matter what the underlying issue is.
But with thyroid eye disease,
the first treatment that I would tell you
is what I would tell any of my patients with dry eyes
is making sure that you put in non preserved
artificial tears especially before you go to bed.
So what I would tell my patients is
I would make sure that you're taking
some non preserved artificial tears,
a drop in each eye before you go to bed
and as soon as you get up in the morning.
And for the vast majority of people,
that's gonna make a big difference
and that may be all you need to do.
Then, many times it's not the aqueous,
which is the water that's on the tear film
that's the problem, but it also can be
that the oil glands aren't producing the oil layer
on the tear film like we need
and they evaporate too quick.
So warm compresses usually work really well
at opening up those glands,
right along the very base of our eyelashes,
and getting the oil to flow better
out on the tear film, keeping it from evaporating
and keeping your eye hydrated better.
One of the things I really like
is called a Bruder mask, B-R-U-D-E-R,
and I'm gonna put a link to the Bruder mask
on Amazon down below so you can take a look at it,
and I'm also gonna put the artificial tears that I want,
and then the third thing that I would do is
I would make sure you're taking a good fish oil supplement.
We're after the omega three fish oils.
I tell my patients I like them to take 2000 milligrams a day
of omega three fish oil, of which 50%
is the EPA and the DHA.
And finding a good fish oil is tough.
I tell people to take vitamin D3,
and almost across the board, vitamin D3
is pretty similar when you go
from one company to the next.
But that's not how it is with fish oil.
With fish oil, you really can find
some crummy products out there.
And so, rather than go through the million different things
I need to go through to tell you which one's the best,
I'm just gonna put a link to it down below.
I think you'll find that they don't bother you
when you ingest them, and many people talk
about the fish burps, but take them right before you eat
and that will help keep them down.
So there it is, how to treat at least
the mild symptoms of thyroid eye disease.
I hope this helped.
I hope that if you have anything
that's bothering you more than that,
any of those moderate to severe symptoms,
you are absolutely seeing your eye doctor
and talk to your primary
about maybe seeing an endocrinologist, as well.
I hope this helped.
If it did, consider subscribing.
Hit that like button and until next time, take care.