Meibography of lower eyelid
During your routine eye examination, your optometrist will examine the health of the front and the inside of your eye. Your optometrist will be able to detect any redness, damage to the cornea, or changes in the openings of the meibomian glands associated with dry eye disease during the examination with the slit lamp microscope. Your optometrist may schedule you in for a separate dry eye evaluation to allow sufficient time to perform more in-depth testing and discuss all your treatment options with you.
The dry eye evaluation includes the following:
- Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) Questionnaire
- Meibography: images your meibomian glands, which produce the oil layer of your tears. This can only be done with specialized equipment, as it is not visible to the naked eye.
- Tear film height: provides an objective measure of the tear reserve
- Tear lipid layer: images the balance of your tear film, as a smooth and uniform layer of lipids should be on the outside of your tear film.
- Non-invasive tear break up time: measures the amount of time it takes for your tears to evaporate; a healthy tear film should remain on the surface of the cornea for 10 seconds.
- Slit lamp imaging: captures images of the ocular surface to directly compare for any changes in the health
- Counselling regarding treatment options
Possible treatment options
A customized treatment plan will be discussed with you during the dry eye evaluation, based on the results of the above tests. It may include one or more of the following:
- Home therapies, such as preservative free artificial tears, warm compresses, lid wipes, supplements
- Anti-inflammatory eye drops
- Long term oral antibiotics
- Intense Pulse Light + Radiofrequency + meibomian gland expression