Dry Eye is one of the most under diagnosed eye issues and affects over 23 million Americans. While there are two types of dry eye disease – evaporative and aqueous deficient – it is the blocking of the Meibomian glands in evaporative dry eye that accounts for 86% of all dry eye cases. When functioning properly, the Meibomian glands create a lipid (oil) layer of tears; without this oil, your tears evaporate 4 to 16 times faster, causing discomfort and dryness.
This dryness is triggered by a number of factors, among them environmental changes, allergy medication, and wearing contact lenses longer than prescribed. All of these things can result in very unhappy eyes: stinging, burning, scratchy, light sensitive, teary and tired. But luckily for our patients at the Eye Clinic of Austin, we have a new treatment option to help alleviate the symptoms of this disease, Lipiflow.
The Lipiflow Thermal Pulsation System is the first and only treatment to address the cause of evaporative eye disease – blocked Meibomian glands. This revolutionary treatment applies a combination of directed heat & pulsation pressure to the eye through a disposable eyepiece inserted under your lower and upper eye lids. With the Lipiflow Activator in place, it is a mere 12 minutes to regaining healthy levels of lipids. A single treatment can make daily discomfort from dry eye a thing of the past.
As Ophthalmologist Thomas Henderson, M.D. notes, “Until now we have had minimally effective warm compresses and forced blinking, forceful and uncomfortable manual lid expression, and traumatic but effective gland probing. Now we have the vastly superior option of LipiFlow treatment to gently heat and gently and effectively empty the meibomian glands in a comfortable 12 minute spa-like treatment. Speaking for myself as a patient, my eyes are more comfortable than before treatment. I wish LipiFlow had been available to me 10 years ago to prevent the avoidable damage that my glands have accumulated in the last decade.”
If you’re a dry eye sufferer, this treatment can give you sustained relief through improved gland function. Schedule an assessment with one of our ophthalmologists at the Eye Clinic of Austin to find out more about LipiFlow.
Source: https://www.lipiflow.com/dryeye/why-lipiflow/clinically-proven/