have you noticed a lot of flakes on your eyelashes, eyelids, are always red or maybe
you're getting a lot of styes? Well you might have something called blepharitis and in this video I'm
going to go over the top three treatments that you can do at home to get your eyelids from
looking like this to get them looking like this nice and clean not red no styes, let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is Dr Neal Guymon, Dr EyeGuy, with the show that keeps your eyes healthy
and your vision clear and I do videos all about the eyes, a lot of educational and how-to videos
like this one so consider subscribing for my future videos. Now let's talk about blepharitis
now first let me go over what blepharitis is. Blepharitis means the inflammation or the swelling
of the eyelids or the eyelid margin and it is super super common in fact i see it every day in
the clinic, super common in children super common in older adults in fact you likely have had it
will have it or are dealing with it right now now blepharitis can cause a bunch of different
symptoms some may include dandruff like flakes on your eyelashes may cause your eyelids to be
red or irritated in general may cause you to have a burning stinging sensation may cause your eyes
to be dry or your eyeballs to be red and may also lead to styes in your eyelids and there's
a lot of gunk and debris that you can find in your eyelashes when you have blepharitis kind
of like this like button a like button now you can get blepharitis from a bunch of different causes
in general it's usually an overgrown bacteria that's on the surface of your eyelids or eyelashes
and this bacteria kind of lives in your natural oils and dead skin cell flakes and the bacteria
will produce toxins bacteria poop and these toxins will irritate the surface of the eyelids
causing that swelling or that inflammation causing blepharitis now we've separated blepharitis into
two different categories anterior blepharitis and posterior blepharitis now with anterior
blepharitis you usually have the debris or flakes or gunk sitting on the base of the eyelashes
and that's the appearance that you get right here kind of like in this model right here with
posterior blepharitis it usually happens on the back side of the eyelid usually with the
oil glands of the eyelid or the meibomian glands blepharitis can cause these meibomian glands to
get clogged up and gunked up and sometimes swell up causing a stye now there are a lot of different
treatments that you can do for blepharitis a lot of treatments that your eye doctor can prescribe
for blepharitis but there's also a lot of things you can do to help control the blepharitis and
these things you can do at home so let's go over my top three favorite treatments that
you can do at home and then stay towards the end of my video for a bonus tip a more advanced
treatment that you can do at home to help control your blepharitis number one on my list is to use
an eyelid scrub now you'll probably find out that there are a bunch of different eyelid scrubs out
on the market occusoft has been in the blepharitis game for a while now and they actually have a
bunch of different formulations that might work for you now these eyelid scrubs are kind of like
wet naps but for the eyelids they're pre-moistened pads that have a soap or a surfactant in there
that helps get rid of oil and bacteria and pretty much what you want to do is you want
to clean the eyelids the eyelashes specifically the base of the eyelashes and the eyelid margins
and you can even go up to the eyebrows clean both eyes and then rinse and kind of dry off
if your blepharitis is really bad you want to try and do it twice a day morning and night if you're
just trying to control the blepharitis or keep it from coming back try and do it at night time when
you're cleaning everything off cleaning your face off before you go to bed now side tip these eyelid
scrubs actually help with allergies as well a lot of the debris that causes allergies gets stuck
at the base of the eyelashes and so if you can clean the debris off with this eyelid scrub
it will help with the allergies in fact they make an allergy version of the eyelid scrubs
that might be something to consider to help you with your allergies now sometimes these pads can
be a little abrasive or a little rough on the skin or eyelids and so sometimes i like to just use
little foam cleansers they also sell those over the counter as well same idea same surfactants
that's in the eyelid scrubs but you can use foam cleansers to clean the eyelids and eyelashes off
now just remember everything that i talk about in this video i'll hook you up with a link below
in the description so you can check it out now a lot of these eyelid scrubs you can find anywhere
they're over the counter pretty much at any store there's also a lot of eyelid scrubs that i really
like that might not be as readily available one is a blephex this one has tea tree oil in there
tea tree oil is actually really good for helping control demodex demidex are little mites that can
live on the base of the eyelashes and sometimes they go hand in hand with with blepharitis and so
sometimes having tea tree oil in the eyelid scrub helps with controlling the blepharitis and the
demodex and number two on the list is hypochlorous acid solution now hypochlorous acid might sound
a little scary or jarring but hypochlorous acid is actually a naturally occurring acid
and it was originally used as a wound care product to help control bacteria
and so hypochlorous acid is a diluted solution that they put into a spray that you can spray
right on your eyelids and around your eyebrow and everything to help control the bacteria overgrowth
to help control blepharitis now ocusoft actually has a version of hypochlorous acid solution called
hypochlor same people that made the eyelid scrubs now with these sprays you can spray it right under
the eyelids or eyelashes and eyebrows and spray it and forget it you spray it on there and just let
it dry you could spray it on there and actually gently rub into the eyelids and eyelashes if you
wanted to or just spray it and forget it and it will just do its job help control the bacteria
on the surface of the eyelids and eyelashes now hypochlor is a really good product that you can
get over the counter i also really really like the product that i love again the link below so
you can check that out but they have a product called hydrate lid and lash cleanser and it's
vegan organic no preservatives no harsh chemicals alcohol and fragrance free very safe for the eyes
a lot of people like it i think it's something you definitely should check out and number three on
the list is a warm compress now what i said before in the video is there's anterior blepharitis and
posterior blepharitis and what i've covered before helps control anterior blepharitis a
lot of bacteria on the eyelashes and surface of the eyelid now a warm compress can help with the
posterior blepharitis it will help with the oil glands or the meibomian glands of the eyelids now
when you apply the heat from that warm compress you're pretty much helping those oil glands
work or help those oil glands turn that oil more liquid so the liquid can move through the oil
glands and come to the surface of the eyelid you kind of keep the oil glands moving and working
together now the reason why i edited this list is because usually anterior and posterior blepharitis
are usually found together if you have anterior blepharitis likely you're gonna have posterior
blepharitis so if you're helping with your eyelid hygiene doing eyelid scrubs and hypochlorous acid
solution if you team it with a warm compress to help with that posterior blepharitis
help your oil glands and as well keep it keeping your eyelids clean that's going to be the ultimate
treatment that you can do at home now make sure that you're subscribed to the channel because
i'll be coming out with videos specifically on how to do warm compresses effectively
as well as videos more in detail about demodex and hypochlorous acid solution now like i said
blepharitis can contribute to dry eyes and i made a specific video of advanced treatments
you can do for dry eyes and i'll put the link up there so you can check that out now a little bonus
tip for the end of the video a little bit more advanced treatment for blepharitis now this one
might be a little bit more expensive but works really really well now there's a tool called
new lids that just came out last year and you can actually buy this and have it at home
it kind of looks like an advanced toothbrush with a silicone tip head
and that head will spin to help control or clean off the debris of your eyelids and eyelashes
works really well definitely recommend checking it out i'll provide a link below now there's also a
treatment similar that we can do in the clinic a little bit more advanced this one's called
blephex and it has a little scrubber tool on there that spins and we apply that to the base of the
eyelids and eyelashes to help clean off the debris and bacteria that's on there like i said before
there's a lot of toxins that build up on the base of the eyelashes this will help break that
cycle of blepharitis hey thanks for watching the video all the way through this is dr neal guymon,
dr eyeguy looking out for you and your eyes stay focused and make sure you check out my
other videos by clicking or tapping the screen right there and i'll see you in the next video