What Is LipiFlow Treatment?
Dry eye is an eye condition that is never easy to deal with. If you have it, then you know the vision issues and uneasiness it brings. Because of dry eye, you often miss out on enjoyable activities and lack focus on your work. As an answer to the need for an effective dry eye treatment, LipiFlow was created. Studies have revealed how advantageous this treatment is to evaporative dry eye, which is the most common type of dry eye. Knowing more about LipiFlow can help you reconsider your dry eye treatment. Here are more details about this innovative procedure that you might want to explore.
How It Works
Your eyelids have minute glands that produce oil. They are referred to as Meibomian glands. The oil that these glands produce is vital because it prevents your tears from evaporating immediately from your eye’s surface. Once the Meibomian glands get clogged, your tears become oil-deficient. This state is called the Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD).
Experts say that the itchy, burning sensation you feel when you have dry eye may also be caused by MGD. When the Meibomian glands are blocked, the oil accumulates and becomes a thick, whitish cream. The accumulation eventually destroys the Meibomian glands, and this leads to the worsening of your dry eye symptoms.
LipiFlow targets MGD and helps bring back the normal flow of oil toward your tear film. With the help of massage and heat, LipiFlow loosens up the clogged Meibomian glands. During the treatment, your eye doctor will provide you with special goggles. Tiny cups are built into the goggles to apply regulated warmth from behind your Meibomian glands and your eyelid. It also massages the front of your eyelid lightly.
The Steps
Below are the known steps involved in LipiFlow:
Your eye doctor uses LipiScan to assess your Meibomian glands. This enables your eye doctor to formulate a diagnosis. There could be more testing after this scan.
If you are diagnosed with MGD, you will undergo the LipiFlow treatment. This will last for 12 minutes. Your eye doctor will prepare you by administering anesthetic drops into your eyes to ease possible uneasiness from the treatment.
Your eye doctor will then place sterile, disposable, dome-shaped devices on our eyes. These are LipiFlow’s activators. The shape of the devices is necessary to protect your corneas. LipiFlow needs to focus on the Meibomian glands, which are found in your inner eyelids.
LipiFlow’s Vector Thermal Pulsation technology will deliver heat into your Meibomian glands through the activators. The heat combines with gentle pressure massages to liquefy and clear the blockages that trigger your MGD symptoms.
If you are thinking about undergoing a LipiFlow treatment, take note that you might experience slight discomfort and pain, which are generally tolerable. We, at TMS Eyecare, will guide you through the steps of your LipiFlow procedure. You can set up an appointment for a consultation with us by calling our clinics in Wichita, Kansas, at 316-669-4760 and 316-686-7212 and our clinic in Arkansas City, Kansas, at 620-442-2577 today.
