So if you've been researching how to do eyelid massage or meibomian gland
expression? Well in today's video I'm gonna show you the best way to do eyelid
massage so that you can improve your dry eye symptoms and help heal eyelid stye
faster so let's take a look. hey everyone welcome back to another episode here on
doctor eye health. I am dr. Joseph Allen and this channel is about helping people
with the eyes, vision and finding the best vision product so if you're into
taking care of your eyes and seeing your best then make sure to subscribe so you
don't miss any of my future videos. also feel free at any point to check out the
youtube description below for additional links and information about everything
that I go over. so there are many benefits of doing an eyelid massage
mainly we're using them to basically encourage the oil glands of your eyelids
called the my bohmian glands to Express meaning they're gonna release all the
solidified oils out of those glands so that they can start producing healthy
new oils again. this is really important for anybody who's struggling with
evaporative dry eye disease or they're having problems such as a chalazion
which is basically kind of a cyst of those meibomian glands those oil glands
and the eyelids are blocked up or you have something like a stye which is an
infection of one of the oil glands along the eyelid, but if you're not doing
eyelid massage properly either you're not gonna get that much benefit from it
or if you're doing it completely incorrectly you could actually end up
hurting your eyes so this video we're gonna go over how to do it the right way.
the first thing you should know is that you'll get more benefit out of doing an
eyelid massage if you are using some sort of warm compress first. now warm
compresses that heat to the eyelid is actually going to help melt the
solidified oils in those oil glands so that when you express them they can
actually come out a lot easier again getting more benefit from doing the warm
compresses and then the live massage. now my favorite way to do an eyelid compress
there's a couple of different ways to do it there's a couple at home hacks as
well as some different products that are on the market that work really well one
of my favorites is same one whether we offer here at our clinic called the
Bruder eye mask. this one you can pick up either online or at most eye clinics
they usually run somewhere between 20 and 30 dollars
but there are some updated prices for those if you want to check them out and
I'll hook that up here in the description below I also have a whole
other educational video about warm compresses if you're not really sure how
to do those it'll hook that up here and you card up above as well as in the
description below if you want to check that out. otherwise give me a moment I'm
gonna go do a warm compress.
now that we're done doing a warm compress it's important for you to wash
your hands because you're gonna be touching your eyelids and you don't want
to give yourself an eye infection. so there's a couple of ways you can do this
the first way is just close your eyelids and actually start at the top of the
eyelid and then push down and you're not gonna be pushing into your eye as much
as it is you kind of kind of just influence those oil glands just kind of
squeeze out from the top eyelid now if you notice I'm kind of working my way
around starting in kind of the corner here and then working my way all the way
through the top portion of the eyelid and across the far side these oil glands
you have about twenty to thirty of them on the superior eyelid and so you
actually want to keep moving around encouraging them to release an
additional way you can do it also is starting with your finger at the top and
then rolling them down you can again start here and roll down but I have
personally don't find that as helpful but some people do like it
then you'll go ahead and repeat on the lower eyelid same thing you're gonna
kind of push upward this time starting in the lower corners and pushing upward
now the most of the most important oil glands that actually end up being
clogged and dying off first are usually the ones in this lower corner so it's
really important to make sure you get those lower corners really good and then
you of course repeat not just on one eye but do that again on the other eye you
can even do them both at the same time if you're really coordinated now there's
another technique and that's using some type of either q-tips or cotton-tipped
applicator like the one I have here in the clinic so this is basically the same
thing as a q-tip and it's important that if you're using this method make sure
you either wash the q-tip first or you go ahead and soak it in some sort of
eyelid cleanser like we have here in the clinic and so I soak the q-tip here in
the eyelid cleanser now I'm actually gonna again close my eye and this is
kind of the same thing I'm starting on the top eyelid and basically smoothing
out those oil glands again pushing more downward rather than in toward my eye
really kind of just massaging those oil glands to secrete then afterward I
actually like to run the q-tip across the eyelid margin making sure not to
poke myself in the eye but running horizontally across the eyelid margin
that will finally encourage that last a little bit of oil to secrete out
afterward you can again go ahead and then repeat on the lower eyelid
basically the same technique again you might have to look upward to do this
better and again really getting the ones here in the corners and then again
rubbing across right on the margin and yeah that's how you do an eyelid massage
and then afterward it's best for you to clean your eyelids with some sort of
forming eyelid cleanser or with maybe hypochlorous acid spray that's another
thing that can be used to clean the eyelids you've never heard of
hypochlorous acid I do have a video explaining what type of chlorous acid is
and how you can get it and I'll hook that up here in the YouTube card above
as well as in the description below again if you want to check that out and
one caution is safety for you guys again when you're pushing on the eyelids after
doing a warm compress it's important not to push too hard on the eyes themselves
because that's gonna artificially increase the eye pressure of the eye and
an increased eye pressure can actually put stress on the optic nerve in the
back of the eye and that can cause what's called glaucoma or if you already
have risk for something like glaucoma it may actually put you at a higher risk of
eye damage so make sure that you're not pushing too hard
additionally warm compresses and eyelid pressure can actually warp the surface
of the eye the cornea if done too hard or too frequently so make sure that if
you're doing these on a regular basis that your doctor has prescribed or
recommended this for you and that's one of the main reasons why people will
sometimes experience blurry vision after doing a warm compress and lid massage
because the surface of the eye has been heated and the cornea can actually
change shape just temporarily for a little bit also these oils have now
released and are now mixing with your tears and that oil can cause some
fluctuation of your vision as well otherwise normal vision usually does
return in just a couple of minutes afterward so why health question of the
day what do you use in my eyelid massage for are you doing it for dry eye
symptoms or are you doing it for something like a sty on your eyelid go
ahead and comment in the section below let us know what's working for you
everyone thanks so much for watching if you liked the video give me a thumbs up
subscribe if you're new and share this video with any friends or family that
you think it might help if you'd like to see another cool video in my series
about eyelid hygiene and health go ahead and click or tap the screen up here to
the side or if you'd like to see another cool video from dr. eye health just
click or tap the screen down over here again this is dr. Joe Allen hear from
dr. eye health the channel helps with the eyes vision and finding the best
vision products keep an eye on it we'll talk to you soon