I get you! MGD and blepharitis.

It’s one reason I use audiobooks more now (plus I can listen to a book while doing one of my daily hot compresses for my eyes.)

Have you seen an ophthalmologist that specifies in assisting with those conditions? In 2018 mine got bad. Like legally-blind, couldn’t open my eyes levels of photophobia. Nightmares of my eyes burning/peeling off my face just to wake up and realise the pain was real.

I’d been to multiple ophthalmologists and a few optometrists but just kept being told “hot compresses” but this level of bad was enough that I looked for someone specialising in dry eye conditions and they got it back to manageable levels in a few months with a combination of antibiotics and steroid drops.

Also, look for good electric eye compresses. When you’re supposed to be doing them 2x/day for 20+ minutes at a time it is really worth it. Even managed, there is a whole eye care routine for maintaining MGD and/or blepharitis.

Once you get the dry eye back to manageable levels reading for hours on end - compresses aside - should be possible. But until then it’s sort of shooting yourself in the foot - you need to get your eyes’ self-lubrication back under control.