An Optometrist’s Perspective of FlutterHabit and Eye Health

As an optometrist and busy mom of three kids in North Dakota, FlutterHabit® has completely transformed my life by enhancing my blonde non-existent lashes, significantly cutting down the time it takes to get ready in the mornings, and giving me SO much confidence. My love for lashes started in 2015 when I had extensions put on for my wedding. I continued to get them refilled for about 6 months. As a newly practicing optometrist, it was concerning to me that I was never able to fully remove the lashes in order to deep clean around my lids and eyelashes. Continuing to get them refilled every couple of weeks did not seem sustainable or good for my ocular health.

For years I went with a good eyelash curler and layers upon layers of mascara. I did not think that the risks of Latisse or other over the counter lash serums with prostaglandins outweighed the benefits. I use prostaglandin analogs every day to treat glaucoma patients by lowering their eye pressures. One of the “side effects” that I see is little old men and ladies with beautifully long eyelashes! The unfavorable side effects include eye redness and irritation, loss of eyelid volume and deepening of the eyes, and darkening of the iris pigmentation. I was not willing to risk changing my blue eyes to brown and prematurely aging my eyes just to have longer eyelashes.

Enter my FlutterHabit era. I discovered FlutterHabit in the fall of 2021 when I was pregnant with my third baby. I have been wearing them consistently for over two years with only a night or two off between sets. Spending 15 minutes on myself once per week has been life changing, and I will never look back!

In my practice, I see and treat a lot of dry eye disease every single day with patients complaining of gritty eyes, burning, red-rimmed, chronic conjunctival redness, watery eyes, lash loss and fluctuating blurry vision. I would say that 90% of my patients have dry eyes not due to a lack of tears (which can be treated with Restasis or Xiidra), but due to meibomian gland dysfunction. Meibomian gland dysfunction is a chronic and progressive eye disease caused by inflammation to the oil glands that line your eyelids (“waterline”). Every time you blink the meibum (oil) is secreted into your tears and that oily layer of the tear film is what keeps the tears on your eyes. If you don’t have a good healthy tear film, your tears will evaporate off of your eyes sooner than your blink rate which is when patients start to notice all of the symptoms above.

The biggest cause of meibomian gland dysfunction and blepharitis is demodex mites. Everybody has theses gross little parasites living on our skin and when they have an overgrowth on our eyelids and lashes, they cause major inflammation and issues. Looking under a microscope, I have the patients close their eyes and I scan the base of the eye lashes and look for collarettes which are a cylindrical dandruff surrounding the base of the eyelash. That sign in clinic is pathognomonic for demodex mites. Our slit lamps do not have high enough magnification to see the mites, but if you pull and eyelash and look at it under a high-powered microscope, these mites are NOT pretty (see photos below at your own risk). Almost 100% of my patients wearing eyelash extensions have an overgrowth of blepharitis and demodex. Even if they are asymptomatic, it can lead to permanent damage to the meibomian glands and chronic dry eye symptoms in the future.

Demodex Mite under High Powered Microscope

Image of bacteria on lash

Causes of Rosacea: Demodex Mites & Microbes, National Rosacea Society, accessed 12 December 2023, <https://www.rosacea.org/patients/causes-of-rosacea/demodex-mites-and-microbes>.

 

Clinical Sign of Blepharitis on Base of Eyelashes

Close up of lashes under a microscope

Maria Vincent, Jose Quintero, Henry D. Perry, James M. Rynerson 2021, Biofilm Theory for Lid Margin and Dry Eye Disease, accessed 12 December 2023, <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348329999_Biofilm_Theory_for_Lid_Margin_and_Dry_Eye_Disease>.

 

My recommendations for maintaining good eye health while wearing FlutterHabit:

  1. Always wash your hands before applying/removing your lashes or touching around your eyes, eyelids and eyelashes.
  2. Remove FlutterHabit lashes after 5 days of use.
  3. Never try to reuse FlutterHabit lashes. The risk of eye infection or inflammation is too high, and no amount of cleaning or disinfecting will remove all skin cells, microbes and parasites from the lashes.
  4. Clean your FlutterHabit lashes daily with hypochlorous acid spray designed for eyes (hypochlorous acid reduces the bacterial load around the eyes and can prevent styes). With closed eyes, spray directly onto the eyelids and lashes, and use a clean spoolie to brush out the lashes.
  5. After removing the FlutterHabit lashes, do a deep clean with a foaming tea tree oil eye cleanser (tea tree oil is the ingredient that kills demodex mites!). Close your eyes, apply foaming cleaner and scrub along base of eye lashes. Let the solution sit for at least one minutes, and then use a clean wash cloth to remove the cleanser.
  6. If your eyes are itchy and you have a mild allergy to the eyelash glue, I recommend using over the counter 0.7% olopatadine hydrochloride ophthalmic solution 1 drop in both eyes once per day.
  7. If your eyes are red, irritated, painful, sensitive to light, have discharge or suspect a stye, please see an optometrist as soon as possible.

 

I am very passionate about eye health, and FlutterHabit allows me to not have to sacrifice my ocular health for beauty!

Dr. Carissa Guler

Optometrist

Image of Doctor

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