The Dry Eye Quality of Life Survey is still open, and your input is incredibly valuable. This research study from the University of New South Wales aims to understand how Dry Eye and related conditions affect daily life. If you’ve already participated—thank you. If not, this is a gentle reminder to take part and help shape a tool that could improve care for patients like you.
This survey builds on real patient experiences. It captures how these conditions affect daily life—physically, emotionally, and socially. Your input will help create a tool that improves clinical care, guides future research, and strengthens patient advocacy.
Is This Study Right for You?
You’re welcome to participate if you:
Are 18 years or older
Have been diagnosed with one or more of the following:
Dry Eye disease, Meibomian gland dysfunction, contact lens discomfort, blepharitis, neuropathic corneal pain, thyroid eye disease, or Sjögren’s syndrome
Can read and understand
What to Expect
The survey is divided into sections so you can take breaks and return later
You can save your progress at any time
Even partial responses make a difference
You’ll answer questions about how your symptoms affect your quality of life
Your feedback will help researchers build a tool that reflects what patients truly experience
Whether you’ve already participated or are just now considering it, thank you for helping shape the future of Dry Eye care. Every response brings us closer to better understanding and better treatment.
If you have any questions or need further information, please don’t hesitate to contact the researcher, Pawan Baral, at pawan.baral@unsw.edu.au
Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia are developing a new questionnaire for diseases that affect the surface of the eye such as Dry Eye disease, Meibomian gland dysfunction, contact lens associated discomfort, blepharitis, neuropathic corneal pain, limbal stem cell deficiency, and Sjögren syndrome.
If you are someone living with one of these conditions, you may be eligible to participate in this research study that focuses on understanding patients’ experiences and measuring the impact of symptoms on their lives.
Would the study be a good fit for you? The answer is Yes if you…
Are 18 years of age or above
Have been diagnosed with one or more of the following ocular surface diseases: Dry Eye disease, meibomian gland dysfunction, contact lens associated discomfort, blepharitis, neuropathic corneal pain, thyroid eye disease, and Sjögren’s syndrome
Can read and understand English
How will you participate in the research study?
You will fill in an online survey at your convenience
You will be asked how your eye condition impacts your quality-of-life
To learn more about this research study and how to participate click here
We’re excited to announce a new series of LIVE Q&A sessions with renowned expert Dr. Steven L. Maskin! These sessions are designed to answer the most pressing questions from the Dry Eye community, offering insights and support for patients and doctors alike.
Following the overwhelming success of the first Q&A, Dr. Maskin is bringing these sessions back to connect with a global audience.
📅 When: Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at 6:00 PM EST
📍 Where: Zoom (link provided after registration)
How to Participate:
Register for the event at this link and submit your question in advance. Registered participants will receive a Zoom invitation on the day of the event.
Don’t miss this opportunity to engage directly with Dr. Maskin. Gain valuable knowledge about Dry Eye and Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD). Spread the word and join an informative and interactive session!
Steven L. Maskin, M.D. is an ophthalmologist who specializes in solving difficult Dry Eye, MGD, and ocular surface disorders. He is the director of the Dry Eye and Cornea Treatment Center in Tampa, Florida and founder of MGDinnovations, a bio-tech company focused on Meibomian Gland Dysfunction.
The temperature’s dropping, and it’s time to cozy up with a warm cup of tea and a thrilling medical mystery. Imagine a case so perplexing, even Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Clouseau, and Kojak would be scratching their heads. Enter: the dry eye mystery that baffles the brightest minds.
But fear not, there IS one doctor-detective who cracked the case—and just in time.
A Doctor Who Solves Dry Eye Like a Pro
Unlock the mystery of Dry Eye
Your Dry Eye Mystery Solved is not just a book, it’s an adventure filled with suspense, danger, and life-saving discoveries. Thousands of dry eye sufferers were stuck in a cycle of hopelessness until one doctor had an “AHA!” moment that changed everything.
While most “specialists” simply prescribe drops, warm compresses, and gadgets, none of these get to the root of the problem. But our doctor-detective saw the desperation in his patients’ eyes. He couldn’t sit back and watch them suffer any longer.
The Breakthrough Moment
After years of relentless research, one patient’s long-suffering led to a life-changing discovery. This breakthrough has transformed how we understand and treat Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD). And who’s the genius behind it all?
Cue the drumroll… it’s Dr. Steven Maskin, ophthalmologist extraordinaire. And guess what? He solved the mystery that affects up to 90% of dry eye sufferers!
The Culprit Behind Dry Eye: MGD
What’s the big reveal? Brace yourself—it’s called periductal fibrosis. That’s the root cause of MGD, and Dr. Maskin’s discovery has been a game changer for those who once thought relief was impossible.
Want to Know the Treatment?
Dr. Maskin invented and patented a revolutionary treatment for MGD. The catch? We’re not revealing it here! Like any good mystery writer, we’ll leave you with some tantalizing clues. If you can’t wait to find out, go ahead and dive into Your Dry Eye Mystery Solved. Skip straight to Chapters 7 and 8 for the full scoop.
Get the Book – And a Special Offer!
Don’t miss out on this limited-time offer! Until November 9th, 2024, you can grab the audiobook at a whopping 60% off. Ready to solve the mystery?
Shelley Hussey single- handedly holds up the Louvre in Paris, France 202?
It was the end of 2022, the most hopeful time of the year–the Christmas season. Like most everyone, I anticipated the new year with hope. Hope for happiness, good health, change for the better, finally winning at Rummy 500 against my darling husband. But I sensed that I was going to come up dry on all four of my hopes. To borrow from Twas the Night Before Christmas, “When what to my wondering eyes did appear, but severe pain and dryness. I had hardly a tear!”
True Grit
I’d been living my life fully and, happily, minding my own business when, as the world celebrated the end of the old year and the beginning of 2023, I was bombarded with practically overnight sensations of sandpaper imbedded in my eyes. I’m guessing 36 grit! (Little did I know that I’d need a lot of grit, as well as determination, faith, a sense of humor, and yes, hope, to overcome this dilemma.)
Excelling at Lying
My former extremely mild Dry Eye symptoms transformed into a Dry Eye lifestyle of lying in bed with a cold, wet washcloth over my eyes for several hours a day. It was the only way I could achieve relief. I was severely fatigued, and my eyes were so uncomfortable that I was unable to read one page in a book, get on the computer for a minute, watch any TV, or even travel to visit friends and family. Except in one case. (I attended a reunion of friends I had planned though warned my hosts I would be horizontal most of the visit.) But the good news in all this was that I listened to every free legal thriller on Audible and can now wholeheartedly recommend anything by John Grisham or Michael Stagg.
Doctors No, No, and No
During the ten months of practically living as an agoraphobic with severe dry eyes, I visited three ophthalmologists. One even claimed to be a “Dry Eye specialist.” (I’ll call him Dr. #3. It turns out he devoted all of one whole day a week to seeing patients. Some specialist!) Their prescribed treatments were:
Dr. #2) Put in his own plug for punctal plugs, but Dr. #3 quickly put down the plugs. (“Only effective 10% of the time,” he said.)
Dr. #3) Prescribed RESTASIS three times a day (helped some), and on the next visit suggested Lipiflow (made things worse). He then suggested amniotic membranes. There was a pregnant pause before I realized he wasn’t going to explain what amniotic membranes had to do with Dry Eye, and I was too fatigued to ask.
“If I Only Had a Brain…”
Unfortunately, my normally inquisitive mind was losing its’ battery power regarding all things medical. I was too overwhelmed, too tired, and in too much pain to self-advocate. I went back home to the bedroom and my two Dry Eye besties: 1) Cold, wet washcloth and 2), Audible novel.
Hope Sneaks In
But then, hope sneaked into the bedroom wearing size 11 1/2 sneakers belonging to my husband. Just by watching me suffer he had been suffering too but doing research online. “I think I found someone who can help you,” he cried out.
The conjunctivochalasis surgery was scheduled for the left upper eyelid a week later, and the right upper eyelid one week after that. (I now know what “amniotic membranes” are!) Dr. Maskin un-masked all my Dry Eye mysteries. The relief post-surgeries and Meibomian gland probing– a month later– was astounding and life-changing. Actually, life restoring!
Got Hope?
I am forever grateful for Dr. Maskin’s compassion, expertise, and knowledge-sharing. Not only did he fulfill my hopes for comfortable eyes, he also understands and believes in hope’s intrinsic value. This most important, uplifting, and life-giving word is in Dr. Maskin’s and Natalia Warren’s book title. Your Dry Eye Mystery Solved: Reversing Dysfunction, Restoring Hope. It’s also listed in the text as the number one guideline for managing Dry Eye: “Don’t give up hope!” To that I say, “Amen!”
Shelley Hussey is a humor writer and speaker, and author of I’m Not OK, You’re Not OK, But That’s OK with God: Finding the Humor and Healing in Life. She recently joined the Not A Dry Eye Foundation Board of Directors.
DRY EYE DISEASE and MEIBOMIAN GLAND DYSFUNCTION ISSUES
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2023 7PM to 8PM EASTERN
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS AND REGISTER
FOR THIS ZOOM EVENT AT
https://www.eventcreate.com/e/drmaskin
Steven L. Maskin, M.D. is an ophthalmologist who specializes in solving difficult Dry Eye, MGD, and ocular surface disorders. He is the director of the Dry Eye and Cornea Treatment Center in Tampa, Florida and founder of MGDinnovations, a bio-tech company focused on Meibomian Gland Dysfunction.
Not A Dry Eye Foundation has created a GoFundMe project to benefit a European medical school graduate named Agnieszka. We need your help to make the project a success.
Agnieszka is a 25-year-old who attended a top medical university in Poland with tuition paid for by the Polish government. She graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in May 2023 despite unrelenting Dry Eye disease. Agnieszka must now begin 13-months of on-the-job training in a clinic hospital to continue on this rigorous career path.
For her, the challenge, though welcome, is also daunting. Because of severe eye pain, constant burning, grittiness, and foreign body sensations in her eyes, sensitivity to light, and dry eyes, she wonders how she will endure for 13-months let alone embark on her career. Nevertheless, she hopes to become an ophthalmologist so she can one day help people like herself suffering with debilitating eye pain caused by Dry Eye, Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), and other comorbidities. But to get Agnieszka to that goal, we need your help.
Agnieszka has already travelled all over Europe seeking care from some 20 ophthalmologists. She’s been diagnosed with aqueous tear deficiency and MGD. She’s been prescribed many treatments. But her doctors could not improve her condition or provide lasting relief for her symptoms.
That’s why we think it’s time to bring Agnieszka to the United States to see Dr. Steven L. Maskin, so she can be examined thoroughly, diagnosed accurately, and prescribed targeted treatments that make sense for her. Dr. Maskin is a world-class ophthalmologist who treats the most difficult cases of Dry Eye and MGD following protocols that he has perfected in over 30 years of practice.
Feel free to share this blog and GoFundMe link with friends, family and on social media. That would be wonderful. If your financial position allows you to donate, so much the better. Please do what you can to help Agnieszka receive the care she desperately needs.
Do you remember what happened when your doctor was searching for a reason for your chronic eye pain? Did you hear the word “neuropathic”? Maybe your doctor prescribed pain medication. Did you take it? And did the pain stop but then return when you stopped taking the pain meds?
If this scenario sounds familiar, it’s because some doctors, ophthalmologists and optometrists alike, are now saying “neuropathic eye pain” is the cause of mysterious eye pain in the Dry Eye patient. They refer to the phenomenon as “pain without stain.” They explain that it’s a problem with the patient’s nerves. So the brain “feels” pain even when there is nothing there to cause the pain.
Reasons to Doubt Neuropathic Pain Diagnosis
It may sound plausible, but in fact there are plenty of reasons to doubt a diagnosis of neuropathic eye pain. The reasons are numerous. For example, a doctor’s diagnostic techniques may be poor, so they miss a multitude of possible ocular surface comorbidities that might be causing pain or other discomfort.
Test results may be inaccurate so even something simple like aqueous tear deficiency can be easily missed. This can happen when a Schirmer’s test or fluoresceine clearance test (FCT) is improperly administered or too swiftly abandoned (as when a test is administered just once instead of several times in succession, as necessary). Or it can be because the challenge test for pain, instilling anesthetizing drops in the eye, doesn’t actually numb parts of the ocular surface that are diseased, sometimes severely diseased and highly sensitive. So the eye will never go numb with topical eye drops.
It can be due to a reliance on fast and easy but not specific tests. An osmolarity test, for example, may indicate that tear osmolarity is sub-optimal, but what does that actually mean? Is a specific disease indicated? Maybe it is because of aqueous tear deficiency, but maybe it’s because of something else! Similarly, MMP-9 testing may indicate some level of inflammation, but why? What is underlying this positive test for the presence of inflammation, if, in fact, it is accurate?
Successful reversal of neuropathic eye pain
In his recently published paper, Dr. Steven L. Maskin describes three patients who had been diagnosed with ocular neuropathic pain by other doctors. The usual treatments were prescribed, but the patients didn’t improve. When they finally saw Dr. Maskin, and had all of their comorbidities diagnosed and treated with targeted treatments, these patients finally found relief for their debilitating and painful symptoms.
Now, I will admit much of what Dr. Maskin writes is way over my head with technical and medical words I don’t always understand. But that said, I am sure the doctors who need to read this will understand it. And if they do, they will get better at diagnosing and treating these types of patients with massive, chronic pain. If your doctor gave you a diagnosis of neuropathic eye pain, maybe you could take a copy of Dr. Maskin’s article to them and see what they think about it.
If you think you would like to connect with one of our Patient Advocates to sort things out, at no cost to you, via email or by telephone just fill out this short form here.
Henry Harlow,
Dry Eye Patient
Patient Advocate, Not A Dry Eye Foundation
Reading research is something of a challenge for a non-scientist, non-medical person like me. What I do first in reading an article of this type is to read the abstract. The abstract is at the beginning of the article. It gives sort of the bottom line of the research. Sort of like what some call an Executive Summary. You can see the whole abstract further below. But first a bit of “my take”.
My biggest takeaway from the abstract, was to give me greater assurance that my decision to have Meibomian gland probing was a good one. I only wish I had learned about it sooner than 10 years plus into my Dry Eye Disease. Then to be honest, I probably would not have done it 10 years ago. At that time the science on the procedure was very thin indeed. I would not have been convinced then. I certainly would not have been desperate enough. After all Restasis was doing well for me in the beginning or so I thought.
The bad news I did not know, and my three well-meaning eye doctors did not tell me, was things were getting worse in the background as time marched on. Their “standard care” was covering the core problem with some symptom relief while the core of the problem, Meibomian gland dysfunction, continued to get worse. Thus, I was one of those, as referred to in the study, who was doing worse in spite of doing a great deal of standard care over the 10 years before I learned about Meibomian gland probing. My story is not an uncommon story. Here is the abstract and see what you think.
Abstract
Obstructive Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) affects millions of patients around the world. Its effective treatment with intraductal Meibomian gland probing (MGP), was first reported in 2010. Since then, MGP has provided relief to thousands of patients globally suffering with refractory MGD. The purpose of Meibomian gland probing is restoring the integrity of the gland’s central duct by entering the gland through the natural orifice, releasing fixed obstruction thought to be periductal fibrosis, thereby establishing and/or confirming the patency of the duct, and concurrently equilibrating intraductal pressure as well as promoting gland functionality with meibum production. There may or may not be immediate secretion of meibum upon successful restoration of ductal integrity depending on the gland’s state of function and degree of atrophy. One double-blind placebo-controlled study has been conducted and, with the accumulated evidence of over 12 other peer reviewed articles in the scientific literature, overwhelmingly indicates that MGP is a safe and effective treatment for the MGD patient refractory to prior standard care and as a first-line treatment. This paper describes relevant fundamental concepts, dispels commonly held misconceptions, and provides an objective review of the current understanding and effectiveness of MGP for the treatment of obstructive MGD. Our analysis will better equip clinicians to draw informed conclusions about both subjective and objective findings reported in MGP studies and researchers to design future robust studies that provide meaningful results.
After reading this post maybe you have further questions. Great! That is what we are here for. To get them answered at no cost to you by a patient advocate via email or by telephone just fill out this short form now.
This important new book about Dry Eye and Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is a must-read for anyone seeking information about these diseases and commorbidities.
By renowned ophthalmologist Steven L. Maskin, MD.
With Not A Dry Eye Foundation’s co-founder and chair, Natalia A. Warren, MBA, MHA.
Published by Yale University Press, June 7, 2022.
For information about where you can buy Your Dry Eye Mystery Solved: Reversing Meibomian Gland Dysfunction, Restoring Hope
This ground-breaking book contains a trove information about Meibomian glands and MGD. You will learn about the structure and function of Meibomian glands and discover how MGD develops, how it progresses, and how it can be reversed. You will learn how to decipher puzzling symptoms and Dr. Maskin’s meticulous approach to diagnosis.
One chapter is devoted to common ocular surface and systemic comorbidities. In others you will learn about conventional and newer treatments for MGD, including Dr. Maskin’s own break-through treatment, Meibomian gland probing. Here, he explains why Meibomian gland probing effectively treats MGD and provides step-by-step instructions for correctly administering the treatment.
Throughout, the co-authors dispel myths about Dry Eye and MGD while portraying the devastating effect MGD and comorbidities can have on patient lives.
Uncover the Mystery
“Our collaboration represents the intersection of a doctor’s quest to uncover the mystery surrounding a common but enigmatic eye disease, and his patient’s harrowing journey with a painful, incapacitating disease,” writes Dr. Maskin in the prologue. “We hope our joint effort will shift conventional thought about MGD, its diagnosis, and treatment toward a new paradigm based on clinical evidence that reveals the true nature of this disease, and we offer this book as a beacon of hope for patients needlessly suffering with inadequately diagnosed and treated MGD.”
For information about where you can buy Your Dry Eye Mystery Solved: Reversing Meibomian Gland Dysfunction, Restoring Hope
Do you remember what happened when your doctor was searching for a reason for your chronic eye pain? Did you hear the word “neuropathic”? Maybe your doctor prescribed pain medication. Did you take it? And did the pain stop but then return when you stopped taking the pain meds?