The USDA wheat germ oil and many PubMed papers show wheat germ oil has 8 times more omega 6 than 3, which will cause an inflammatory response in the eye. I tried to use this ointment a few times, maybe 15 times total, and then I just used it for hands and feet, as a cream, because it irritates the eyes, unless you use an impossibly small amount. The issue with styes is that they cause inflammation and red eyes sometimes, so this makes the eye even redder, when it should do the opposite, reducing redness. Because of that for styes, I believe a better ointment may be the Soothe night ointment, since it contains the same mineral oil and petrolatum, except it's free from wheat germ oil. Wheat germ oil also has polyphenols which are very unstable and can react with stuff in the eye. The omega 3 and 6 acids are very unstable, hence this Stye ointment expires in 1 year, whereas Soothe ointment (9$ at Walmart or amazon) expires in 3.5 years due to having just straight alkanes mostly, with a tiny percentage of aromatic hydrocarbons. Maybe they need to add flaxseed oil or something with omega 3 to it, to bring the ratio to 1:2 instead of 1:8. The other issue is the mineral oils and petrolatum, which are all made from petroleum, mostly alkanes. Petrolatum and Mineral oils got impurities and aromatic hydrocarbons that irritate and redden the eye (all ointments at times, when used even in tiny amounts, way less than what paper says, cause some irritation). Also, their biophysical properties are different: pretty solid at room temp, while healthy meibum is liquid. Due to different electrostatic biophysical properties, they could alter the fine balance of the chemical system of the tears and disturb the homeostasis of the aqueous-lipid layer barrier (plug some outer lipid layer holes, but disturb the inner lipid layer stability where phospholipids face the water; i.e. reality being different than theory sometimes, not having such a universal ‘all good effect’ on 3rd lipid layer stability), or by facilitating certain toxic compounds to more easily cross the junction points between layers of the eye: cornea-vitreous gel, vitreous gel-retina, etc. Additionally, most hydrocarbons believed to be natural to meibum are squalene, which is similar to beta carotene, etc, vastly different than the saturated alkanes in mineral oils. Many authors think the alkanes found in some meibum studies are due to people using face cream, makeup, etc and these entering meibomian glands (or mineral oils in every hand cream and shampoo, in food, etc), where, via different biophysical properties they can slow down certain important regenerative processes, leading to the meibomian gland lipid underproduction or even atrophy in the long-term, while offering short-term protection – just like redness reliever eye drops offer ‘white eyes’ today, but rebound redness 2 years later and damaged blood vessels (by contracting and expanding 1-2 times daily for 3 years) when eyes no longer respond well and we need 5x more of a very acidic drop to prevent redness that destroys the eye since only around pH 7.4-7.6 some eye processes of regeneration are optimal apparently in vitro, not at 5.7-6.3 of redness reliever drops. Thus, not all is rosy just because ‘alkanes don’t chemically react with anything’, they could change electric potentials across membranes, block certain enzymes from folding, proteins, etc, slowing thus important biochemical processes. Being solid vs natural healthy meibum, they are introducing cytokine storm via the ‘foreign body’ sensation they can cause in the first minutes of application. “Pharmaceutical grade mineral oil consists of a mixture of saturated hydrocarbons” ► EHJS 2020;22(Suppl J):J34-8. Vaseline (Eur. Ph.) can have 0.67% aromatics, while light liquid or liquid paraffin more like 0.05% ► F1000Res 2017;6:682. Well, this is for styes, but it should not make your eyes red. What is the solution? Maybe buy Soothe ointment or use much less. Normally, if you use what they say, you put 400 times more fat in your eyes, more lipids, than the eye is used to and this can cause too much irritation. Bausch and Lomb Soothe ointment may work better for you too: use only a tiny bit, 0.5 mm at the most, with sterilized q-tip maybe, made of silicone, amazon sells those, you can disinfect with UV lamp and alcohol 70% that kills 99.9% of bacteria, just take ointment without touching the tube, and place it without touching the eye, just leave it in the temporal (not nasal) corner, if you want to avoid pulling eyelid and placing 400-600 times more lipids into the eye at once time than in a natural tear, which may be toxic and redden the eye as some ointments did for me when I used the 'paper instructions huge amount'. The Owen eye guide amazon sells can be used to place drops and even ointments, but won't be a good idea, since it will put way too much at one time. Tears have 3 layers: mucin layer near cornea, 0.035 micrometer, water layer, 8 micrometer, lipid layer 0.1 micrometer. So, about 80 times more water than lipids, and when we put ointment we put 5-8 times more than the volume of a tear present at one time on the eye, so we end up with this huge 400-600 times more lipids on the eye... With styes, it's best to put a little less first, to avoid redness. :) See how it goes.
