Google Face Mites and you'll get "About 37,600,000 results" -- I assume it's a popular topic because it makes for good click bait, especially when you show pictures of the worm-like critters. I was skeptical enough that I bought a cheap microscope to check them out. Face mites are real, and if you're over 50, or have a screwed up immune system, there's a decent chance that they are causing you problems. In my wife's case it was just irritation & redness in her eyes that she tried to ignore, like all the other effects we feel from aging. Unfortunately my symptoms were more serious -- once, for a period of several months I had to wash my eyes out every 2-3 hours because of the pain -- but I've got immune / auto immune problems on top of being old. Treating for the mites -- washing both eye lids twice a day with a special tea tree oil solution -- has made a tremendous difference for me. So I wanted to share my experience, because even if it just means your eyes have less redness &/or irritation, I think that might be worth it.
Now everyone has face mites, and ideally they don't cause any problems -- some science folks even argue they might be beneficial. There are two kinds of face mites that are common to all of us: one takes up residence in your skin's pores, feasting on the oil, while the other munches on hair follicles. To look for the 1st you have to do a skin scraping & look for the mites using a microscope -- to find the 2nd you just pull a few hairs or eye lashes and look at them under a microscope. It does not have to be a very powerful microscope since the mites are maybe a little over half the diameter of an eye lash [at least the ones I saw]. Or you can just take the scientists / researchers word for it, that we all have these mites -- even on those people where they didn't find mites, testing for mite DNA came up positive.
While a medicine is in the works that will kill the mites, the current meds all come with side effects & risks. The most common 1st step is to wash your eye lids twice a day with a solution including tea tree oil. Tea tree oil will kill the mites, but many [most?] people react badly to full strength tea tree oil on our skin, and you Do Not want to get it in your eyes, so you can either come up with your own diluted solution or buy one of several products designed to kill mites with a lesser concentration of tea tree oil -- they sell both disposable wipes and solutions for washing your eye lids. [Search Amazon for Face Mites.] In one article I read, ophthalmologists advised applying an ointment at the lash line before bed -- the mites crawl out at night to mate, and the docs feel that the ointment keeps them trapped so they cannot crawl out. They suggest an antibiotic ointment for the eyes that's prescription only, but there are several eye ointments that you can buy over the counter, and one of those *might* help. Obviously you need to make sure you don't put anything harmful in your eyes -- scattered among the results when I searched Amazon for eye ointment were listings for regular antibiotic ointment that should never be put in the eyes.
That's a brief summary anyway... like I said, there are Loads of articles online. Some of the Google hits are clearly more in the click bait domain, trying to shock you with pictures of the critters living on your face, but there are also quite a few that qualify as serious medical oriented literature. Good luck and I hope it helps someone.