Your eyelids and eyelashes are nasty! In fact the  number one problem i see with most people's eyes  

is the fact that they don't wash their eyelids!  so in this video i'm going to break down how bad  

eyelid hygiene leads to eye diseases like anterior  blepharitis and dry eyes. plus i'm going to share  

five pro tips on blepharitis treatment at home  and how you can clean your eyelids properly.  

let's take. a look hello and what's up this is  Dr. Allen here from the Doctor Eye Health show  

helping you learn all about the eyes vision and  finding the best vision products now part of my  

job as an eye doctor is always examining the  eyelids looking for any sort of deformities  

irregularities anything that could be  leading to disease and it's very common  

for me to see people of all ages especially  at teenage years and older starting to develop  

really nasty eyelids and eyelashes and usually  what i see behind a microscope is an extra buildup  

of skin oils dead skin cells and even nasty  signs of bacteria and even mites on the eyelashes  

yes i did say mites in the eyelashes that  is a real thing and i hate to say it but  

ladies who wear a lot of eye makeup and usually  the ones who don't wash off that makeup very  

well your eyelids are probably the nastiest. see  when either an ophthalmologist or an optometrist  

sees this building up on the lashes we call that  having anterior blepharitis. and that's when you  

have this extra buildup of all this different  skin oils and dead skin cells and then bacteria  

and these microorganisms such as demodex mites,  end up eating those oils and dead skin cells and  

then they basically cause inflammation in your  eyelids and your lashes and that then contributes  

to not just pain burning sensation irritation but  that also causes an irregularity in your tear film  

leading to dry eye disease in fact this is such a  contributing issue to things like dry eye. i know  

many dry eye specialists who for every single one  of their patients they automatically start them on  

some sort of eyelid cleaning regimen. i once heard  the analogy that it was like a nasty swimming pool  

and people are just adding lubricating artificial  tears like filling up the pool with water but they  

never bothered to clean the pool out in the first  place but to be honest i think part of this issue  

is eye doctors faults that we haven't done a  very good job in educating our patients the  

importance of cleaning their eyelashes and  their eyelids on a daily basis, but it kind  

of makes sense because even if you are washing  your face twice a day most people try to avoid  

getting soap and water into their eyes because it  stings it burns it's not fun but thankfully now  

we do have several different safe easy ways to  clean your eyelids that you can just do at home  

many of which your doctor will probably recommend  to you at some point so let's break down five easy  

ways you can start cleaning your eyelids at home  preventing blepharitis and dry eyes now all of  

these treatments are usually available through  your local eye doctor's office so you can always  

call up your local clinic and ask what they have  and what they think may be working best for you  

otherwise all of these different treatments are  available over the counter and i'll put links  

in the description below if you want to find  them yourself and try them out number one is  

to clean and wash your eyelids and lashes daily  with some form of an eyelid cleanser or shampoo  

historically eye doctors have recommended using  something like baby shampoo to clean the eyelids  

because regular shampoos obviously sting and  irritate the eyes but baby shampoo the no  

tear formula wouldn't cause this problem however  anecdotally myself when i would do this in school  

i would know that my eyelids would dry out  and in fact it would make them feel worse  

and in recent years many eye doctors and dry  eye specialists have been concerned about the  

preservatives in things like baby shampoo and is  now no longer really recommended because there  

are studies linking many preservatives found in  these products to causing problems with the oil  

glands of the eyelids and even causing oil gland  death presumably making things like dry eye and  

blepharitis worse so instead it is recommended to  look for some other form of eyelid cleansing foam  

or wash for cleaning the eyelids daily there are  many different brands available for this most of  

which do contain a little bit of tea tree oil  in it and that's because it is really good at  

killing microorganisms namely demodex mites most  of these cleaning products are very safe to use  

but you'll notice ones that have higher amounts of  tea tree oil may cause more of a burning stinging  

sensation at most local pharmacies you'll be able  to find an eyelid cleansing product like this  

that's next to all the other eye drops in kind of  the eye care aisle otherwise again there are many  

companies that make them and are available online  another great option is that of eyelid cleaning  

wipes which are basically the same type of  eyelid cleaning products but infused into a moist  

towelette which you open up like a little wet wipe  and then you clean your eyelids and lashes with  

that every day just like with the eyelid cleansers  and foams there's a lot of different competing  

products on the market for these most of which  all work the same except some of them do require  

you to wash your eyelids with water afterward  while some other products which i usually prefer  

are ones that you can just clean the eyelids and  then forget about it you don't have to wash off  

your face or anything like that this one is just  happens to be one of the newest eyelid wipes on  

the market that i've been trying out from tear  restore they also make a dry eye kind of eyelid  

mask that i've reviewed in previous videos but at  least with trying this one for the last few weeks  

i do find it very refreshing it doesn't cause any  stinging or irritation and in fact it leaves my  

skin feeling very clean and healthy again many  different options for cleaning wipes it's nice  

usually that you can carry them around if you need  to otherwise again lots of different options i'll  

leave links in the description below now to get  better results from your eyelid cleaning regimen  

you don't just want to get some sort of eyelid  cleanser to the lids to wipe away the skin oils  

but you also want to agitate the lashes and  really massage the oil glands of the eyelid  

that's going to result in more oils from the  meibomian glands of your eyelids to excrete  

oils and start to stabilize your tear fill one  product that i've reviewed in previous videos  

and that i do personally use on a daily basis  is that of a new lids device the new lids device  

basically looks like an electronic toothbrush  that has an oscillating head to it that cleans  

and massages the eyelids and the lashes and also  sonically activates the meibomian glands coming  

in at a price of about 250 to 300 us dollars it  may be a little steep for a lot of individuals  

but i do find it to be working for myself and for  a lot of my patients i've had people just tell me  

that this is the only thing that really brings  them relief i know for some people financially  

it may just not be the best option but at least  for being an eye doctor and the science behind it  

and kind of giving us some hope that we can get  the meibomian glands to work a little bit better i  

think it may be a great option for some people and  at least with some of the pilot studies that they  

have published it does show that increased tier  break up time and reduced evaporation of the tears  

is improved after about 30 days of continuous use  now a fourth option for cleaning the eyelids which  

looks like an eyelid brush is that of Myboclean  and maybe an affordable kind of alternative  

to something like the new lids device i don't  think they're a direct comparison because the  

new lids device really has added benefits of the  sonic oscillation but at least with this you are  

cleaning and brushing the eyelids Myboclean looks  like this they're just little handheld surgical  

grade silicone eyelid brushes they're very soft  and they're kind of made in an ergonomical design  

so it really fits along the eyelids and the lashes  but they come in a pack of four so that you can  

use one of these on both eyelids for about three  months and then after the three months you can  

toss them out and then get to the next one kind  of like you would be changing out your toothbrush  

for example the whole point is that you add an  eyelid cleansing product to the brush and then  

you massage and clean your eyelids for about  30 seconds or so in my experience i have been  

finding them to be really useful especially for  travel and just cleaning the eyelids really well  

again i can't make claims that they're as good as  something as the new lids device because i don't  

really have any data or science to really support  that they're activating the meibomian glands but  

at least for cleaning the lashes and getting  all of that crud and oils away from the eyelids  

that does a really good job of that one thing i  really like about maybelline is their eyelid gel  

again i've been only trying it for about a month  but it really makes my eyes feel good it's got  

a manuka honey coconut oil and aloe vera kind  of mixture which with additives like that it's  

supposed to help reduce inflammation of your  eyelid which again is the whole kind of issue  

with blepharitis in the first place i've been  liking this so much i've been using it for things  

like my new lids device on a daily basis one other  eyelid gel i've really liked for myself and using  

things like the new lids device is that of zocular  that is a type of eyelid gel that's designed by an  

ophthalmologist that has proteoglycans in it and  there's a lot of research into proteoglycans and  

helping reduce inflammation naturally as well as  helping with pain and i know a lot of other dry  

eye specialists who are big supporters of that  product so if you've never heard of mybaclean or  

zocular those are maybe two you can check out  as well the final and fifth way of cleaning  

your eyelids that most eye doctors will probably  recommend is that of something called hypochlorous  

acid hypochlorous acid is an antiseptic spray  that is safe for your skin in fact it's very  

similar to something like bleach except that  where bleach will cause damage to the surface of  

your skin hypochlorous acid won't in fact it was  invented as a treatment for diabetic foot ulcers  

and then at some point they found that it was a  really good at cleaning the eyelids in the face  

it's used pretty easily just by either spraying  it directly to your face or onto a cotton ball and  

then wiping the eyelashes probably the most famous  brand in eye care that makes hypochlorous acid is  

that of Avenova. Avenova originally started off  as a prescription only hypochlorous acid that  

you could had to get through your eye doctor but  since then it has now become over the counter and  

is something that's just readily available you  can purchase yourself but the whole point to the  

cleaning solution is that you're cleaning your  face and killing any sort of microorganisms that  

can be contributing to blepharitis and further  down the light dry eye since the Avenova product  

many other companies are making hypochlorous acids  sometimes they're cheaper if you've tried any  

other different brands let me know in the comments  section if you find one better than the other  

i find a lot of these companies will kind of  bad mouth each other saying somebody's not  

fully like 100 pewter somebody else isn't  making it the same way and that it's not as  

effective it's tough for me to really know what's  effective or not i've never seen any studies  

directly comparing any of these products but i do  know from talking with a lot of biochemists that  

usually ones that are sold in a glass bottle  are more stable and are usually going to last  

longer on your shelf this just happens to be the  brand i've used in the last few years from the i  

love company this is their hydrate lid and lash  cleanser but again there are many brands on the  

market and you can certainly talk to your local  eye doctor what they recommend now of course these  

are not the only options for treating blepharitis  and for cleaning the eyelids for people that this  

really gets out of control as an eye doctor will  often prescribe antibiotics and other cleaning  

products even things done in the office to get  things really back to ground zero please remember  

that if your eyes are ever really burning causing  pain you're having disturbance in your vision  

do not just consult all my videos make sure that  you talk to your local eye doctor about these  

problems so that you can get properly diagnosed  and treated but i do hope this video helps you  

out and if you've learned something new today  go ahead and smash that like button for me and  

consider subscribing to the channel if you want  to continue learning everything about the eyes and  

ways to get your eyes just feeling better seeing  better if you do want to know more about dry  

eyes and how to treat the eyelids and any  issues going on there go ahead and check out  

some of our other videos on that same topic  or if you want to learn something else cool  

about the eyes here from the dr eye health  channel click or tap the screen down over here  

thanks again so much for watching again this is dr  Allen keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon