Blepharitis

Corneal filaments frequently recur after removal, and resolution occurs only by treating the patient’s underlying inflammation. This case illustrates the need to move to atypical therapies, such as N-acetylcysteine.

Delusional parasitosis or Ekbom’s syndrome is a patient’s mistaken belief that he is infested by parasites such as mites, lice, fleas, spiders, worms, bacteria, or other organisms. Scott Schachter, OD, discusses the challenges ODs face when working with these patients.

Sometimes you just want to know what the experts do.

Scott Schachter, OD, discusses what you should do when demodex blepharitis treatment options fail.

The British Contact Lens Association (BCLA) celebrated its 40th birthday June 9-11 at its 2017 clinical conference and exhibition in Liverpool, UK. Optometry Times was there to hear the latest and live tweet from the meeting.

When your pediatric patient presents with irritated, itchy eyelids with reddened lid margins, diagnosing blepharitis may be the easy part of patient care. Implementing a treatment regimen for patients who are infants, toddlers, or school-age children, requires optometrists to use not only their knowledge but their clinical art of practice as well.

In a poll fielded on the Optometry Times website, we asked ODs, if they prescribed topical antibiotics for blepharitis, their top reason for doing so.

In a poll fielded on the Optometry Times website, we asked ODs what they used for first-line therapy for blepharitis patients.

Do you reach first for warm compresses or lid scrubs? What about antibiotics? Weigh in!

With the majority of treatments, both over-the-counter and prescription, focusing on tear supplements and the increase of the natural tear, there may not have been a shift in focus or thinking by most practitioners.

Asking your patients to spend a few minutes a day brings big benefits

The ocular surface encompasses not only the cornea, but the all-important supporting conjunctiva that is divided into the bulbar, limbal, palpebral, forneaceal, and marginal zones.

Laura M. Periman, MD, moves away from detergents for blepharitis treatment

Dr. Scott Schachter discusses four updates to demodex blepharitis, from diagnosis to management

Adding this technology can improve your diagnosis and better educate your patients

The Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society’s Meibomian Gland Workshop was tasked to sort through the literature to determine proper terminology of conditions affecting the lid margin. Review the terminology, gland anatomy, gland expression classifications, and treatment strategies.

Blepharitis is an inflammatory condition of the eyelids leading to red, irritated, itchy, and dandruff-like scales that form on the eyelashes.

Ron Melton, OD, FAAO, and Randall Thomas, OD, MPH, FAAO, discussed common practices for treating dry eye, meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), and blepharitis at the American Optometric Association (AOA) annual meeting. Here are a few medical management pearls from their discussion.

Certainly, one would assume that nothing could be safer than a product designed for use with children. Television commercials with smiling, happy babies covered in frothy bubbles imply the product is harmless. Ubiquitous marketing alone creates a subconscious sense of safety for both doctor and patient.

Dry eye represents a major opportunity with more than 25 million people suffering from the condition in the U.S.,1 and meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is thought to be the most common cause of dry eye.2 During a session at SECO, Walt Whitley, OD, MBA, FAAO, shared his tips for making the most of this opportunity in your practice.

While many eyecare practitioners (ECPs) are just now learning about Demodex infestation of the eyelids and adnexa, the fact is that this condition has been around for as long as mankind. The entomologists Johannsen and Riley from Cornell University first described the species in detail anatomically as early as 1915, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that clinical reports of demodex-related blepharitis began to emerge in the literature.

A common barrier to many practitioners is the concern that their practice does not have the patient foundation to make investment in the services economically profitable. I assure you that OSD management will profit the patient in many ways that includes clearer, more comfortable vision, enhancing their productivity and overall wellbeing.

While there are a myriad of associated concerns due to ocular surface inflammation, a few eyelash-related complications of note are trichiasis, acquired distachiasis, local madarosis, and poliosis. Each of these is in some way connected to dry eye.

The lipid layer prevents evaporation of aqueous tears and prevents drying. Lipid deficiency due to meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is the most common cause of symptoms associated with dry eye disease.