QUESTION: I have severe ocular rosacea. I also have skin roscea

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ANSWER:

Ocular Rosacea as you know affects the glands in the eyelids which can block, it also affects the tears so they do not wet the eye as well as normal leading to dry gritty eyes in some cases. Build up of a dandruff-like material along the base of the eye lashes is also common.

The effects of all this can be mild itch, dryness of the eyes and fine scale along the eyelashes, moderate severity has burning and crusting with possible blocked glands forming styes to severe where the eyes are very sensitive to light, vision can be blurred and the conjunctiva of the eyes can be very inflamed. In the moderate and sever cases medical attention is important for the health of the eyes.

We don't specifically make a treatment for ocular rosacea.

However, treatment usually includes an antibiotic from the doctor such as Doxycycline or minocycline (sometimes erythromycin) to reduce the demodex mites which often inhabit the base of the eye lashes especially when there appears to be a dandruff like material there.

Artificial eye drops which can be purchased at any pharmacy should be used daily as tear production is often altered by ocular rosacea. Good lid health is important and this can be maintained with a commercial product available at most pharmacies called "lid-care" which are a box of individual sealed pads containing a special solution to clean the eyelids and reduce the build up of the "dandruff" along the eye lids.

If yellow crusting occurs the doctor may prescribe an antibiotic eye drop or ointment. Once treatment is started the problem usually starts to clear up slowly sometimes taking about 2 weeks to resolve.

Basically a good artificial tear such as Systane or one of the many others used daily plus daily eyelid care using a specially formulated product such as lid-care is what you can do with readily available products. For flare-ups a doctor needs to be consulted.

Kind Regards,
David Hosking.