How an Optometrist Built “Braces for Your Eyes”

0:00So I believe in preventing prescriptions before they even happen, instead of just correcting them and watching them get worse year after year. So instead of just waiting for a lot of these eye conditions to get worse, I believe in being proactive and trying to prevent as much of it as soon as possible. I am Dr. Ray Huang, I am from Boston and I prevent prescriptions instead of correcting them. Dr. Ray Huang is an optometrist and preventive eye care specialist focused on protecting vision before problems progress. As the founder of preventative eye care, she helps patients take a proactive approach to eye health through education, prevention and personalized care. The IVAR reform is a heart contact lens that you wear while you sleep and it corrects your vision for distance and reading. And it is also designed to prevent your prescription from going up. I initially developed it for my son who because of a congenital tosis was developing a really, really high prescription really fast by three months old.

1:06Basically, he was day-today, he's going to go blind. He was going blind in one eye. You guys got 2020 vision in that eye? Yes, yes. It took years and you know eye... Talk about case study. Yes, so I wrote a case study and yes, I tried all of the smaller corneal lenses out on the market and none of them could get rid of all his astigmatism. And so... It spans the globe like a super high school internet health is ready. Today Apple is going to reinvent the bomb. It's not over until I win! The Living Your Legacy Podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. It's amazing! It's awesome! Oh, that is sensational! Open! She's coming with the way you said Paul is the box is not on the planet. You can live your dream! Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast.

2:07I'm your host again, Jay Slangin. And yeah, we get the privilege to speak to some of the best entrepreneurs, the disruptors, the experts from all kinds of industries, from all around the country. And today, joining us for our America's Best Doctors Show, we really truly have one of America's Best Doctors sitting here today. Why don't you introduce yourself? What's your name and where you from and what do you do? I am Dr. Ray Huang. I am from Boston. And I prevent prescriptions instead of correcting them. All right. And so, yeah, you are all about. I just did your session. It was an amazing session. You were all nervous, but I'm just telling you, you killed it. Nothing to be nervous about. Honestly, you did wonderful. So, yeah, we talked all about it. What an interesting career that you've had. But your main message was about preventative eye care. So, give me a little background. What are you talking about when preventative eye care?

3:09So, I believe in preventing prescriptions before they even happen instead of just correcting them and watching them get worse year after year, which actually makes the eye elongate and increases risk of diseases, like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and retinal detachment. I also believe in preventing dry eye before it gets really bad, because once it gets really bad, it's like it just gets worse. So, instead of just waiting for a lot of these eye conditions to get worse, I believe in being proactive and trying to prevent as much of it as possible, as soon as possible, because I believe in preserving the eye for as long as possible. So, even as a kid thinking about preserving your eye for when you're 60, basically. Now, one can't help that when I'm talking with you, I'm always focusing on my eyes.

4:09You're like dry eye. I'm like, hmm, are my eyes dry right now? Yes, yes. So, when you talk about dry eye, how dry? Because I feel like I guess I could use a little eye drops, but how dry is dry eye? So, every time you blink, you should be squeezing my bum. Your eyes naturally natural lubricant out, and that should be lubricating your eye. So, if you blink and you don't feel any wedding, then your glands are probably clogged. And if they get clogged for too long, they degenerate. And once they degenerate, you can't get those glands back. So, it's really important to start unclogging your glands. And it could be as simple as, you know, lidscript just wiping your lids twice a day. Kind of like you brush your teeth. I feel like everybody brushes their teeth. Nobody washes their eyelids. But, you know, they're, so by 70, 100% of the population has demodex mites living in their eye lash follicles.

5:13So, you know, if you can, you know, start early, you can, you know, preserve those glands that secrete the natural protection against those. And just, you know, cleaning your lids regularly, warm compresses just to kind of like, you know, heat up what's stuck in the glands. And, you know, get them to come out. I have a Instagram doctor, I pimple, pepper, and I, yes, I have all these videos of me unclogging people's glands. And you can just see like the thick mucus or like yellow discharge just shooting out of the glands. And, you know, is this now going to pop up? And is my phone listening to this right now? And I'm going to get some nasty stuff in my algorithm. Oh, no, no, she didn't mean it. She didn't mean it. Okay, okay. So, my eyes are now not as dry as you were talking about, right? But you were in this amazing t-shirt, right?

6:13And it says Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. I can see around. Yes. So, it is a hard contact lens. I messed that up every single time because I, like, when I was living in Chiang Mai, there was a t-shop that was called Tivana. Right? So, everything now is Vana, Vana. And I'm a fan of Nirvana, right? So, it was just natural for me to say Ivana, but it's Ivara. Ivara. Okay, perfect. So, explain what Ivara is. It's an amazing thing. Tell us about it. So, the Ivara reform is a hard contact lens that you wear while you sleep, and it corrects your vision for distance and reading. And it is also designed to prevent your prescription from going up. So, I reiterated the design, like, 24 times on myself and my kids. And I initially developed it for my son, who, because of a congenital tosis, was developing a really, really high perception. Really, really high prescription really fast by three months old.

7:15So, I initially designed it to keep him from going blind in one eye, and I realized, you know, we don't have to just wait for kids to develop these high prescriptions that, you know, are degrading their vision. We can actually prevent these prescriptions from happening before they happen as early as possible. And so, you know, these lenses, think of them like braces for your eyes. So, if you can get a kid in these eye braces when they get their first prescription, it could prevent them from ever developing a prescription. So, the best prescription is no prescription. And, you know, we can do that for the next generation of kids, instead of, you know, right now, you know, half the world is on track to be myopic by 2050. And I want to eliminate that. We can eliminate that. But we have to, you know, basically prevent these kids from ever developing prescriptions, which is possible now with the IVAR reform lens. Basically, if you can get a kid in eye braces when they get their first prescription, it can prevent them from ever needing glasses or, you know, soft contacts as correction.

8:27So, when you talk about this, a few things come to mind, right? First thing is, how do you develop like the braces for eyes? Like, are you in a lab and it's like making a contact lens, which is a solution that hardens into a lens? Like, how did you actually develop this? So, I take a topographical map of the front of the eye. And then I basically, you know, we shape the eye to be, you know, the shape it needs to see. But I also add in a ring of peripheral to focus to send a signal for the eye to stop growing longer and shorten. And then I send it to a manufacturing lab and they actually lay the contact parameters that I tell them to into, you know, very oxygen permeable material. And then they ship me the lens. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, how different is it from a contact lens? Like contact lenses are soft, right? And yours is more.

9:33Mine is hard. So, a soft lens is 99% water. So, you are not supposed to sleep in them ever because, you know, the, you know, 99% water is like a breeding ground for bacteria. My lenses are hard. So, they have, you know, no water content. So, bacteria in my core organisms can't survive. So, they are, you know, safe to wear while you sleep, kind of like a retainer to keep your eye in the shape that we want it to be in. Gotcha. So, that you can take it off during in the morning and you can see, you know, far away and up close all day without anything in your eye. And so, who's wearing this? Like, so I'm 47 now, right? I'm getting near sightedness. You know, my distance is, is, is not bad, right? But is, is this something that I can, I can get and I just pop them in at night? Yeah. So, you can get them. You pop them in at night. You take them off in the morning and it will embed both distance and reading areas into your eyes. So, you'll be able to see far away and read at the same time without, you know, having to switch between.

10:40Different glasses. Wow. That's amazing. And so, also the second thing that I was thinking about when you're talking about this, right? So, in entrepreneurship, right? You know, you have these, these big corporate companies, right? And then they see the next innovative thing, right? And, you know, you're on Shark Tank and they're always like, what's stopping these big corporations from buying you out? And then just kind of killing the product. Because, you know, I'm thinking, you know, the major brands of contact lenses, right? They're selling contact lenses for the lifetime of a kid and it gets worse and worse and worse. And I almost see them wanting it to get worse and worse. They have no business if you're fixing eyes, right? So, have you been getting, you know, offers from them to just kill your product? So, you know, so far I've been self-funding and my own kind of, you know, patents and FDA approvals. So, you know, I feel like, you know, it would be easier to seek investment from one of the big, you know, contact lens companies. But yes, it is, you know, my biggest fear that if I, you know, get investment from them, they'll kind of just table it. And this will never become a thing.

12:00And so, that is actually the reason why I'm still self-funding. And, you know, it's not a, it's not a cheap thing. It's, yeah. So, first you got a patent, right? That's not cheap. That was like 200K. And the patent, okay. And then, and then the FDA approval is 750K. So, yeah. So, I would love, you know, to have a big pharmaceutical company, you know, help me fund it and develop it. And, you know, they have the know how the distribution. But, you know, it was one of my biggest fears. The whole eye care industry is kind of, you know, the business model is to sell people, new glasses and contacts every year when their prescription gets worse. And, you know, I am, I'm still a little afraid that this will never see the light of day. So, you know, part of kind of, you know, going on, you know, America's best doctors is to get the word out that, you know, there is the technology to prevent prescriptions.

13:05You don't have to just wait for it to get worse and keep buying new stronger prescriptions. You know, I'm, I'm trying to make it a thing. But yes, you know, we, we need doctors like you that are, you know, they care about the cure, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The fixing it so that like something something something amazing that you were saying is like when you were thinking about your legacy, right? And you were thinking about, you know, how the industry kind of changes their mindset of eye care. Right? And then what that looks like when, you know, the normal person walks into the, the to see their eye doctor, they're not talking about, okay, how strong of a prescription do you need? Right? So, what are you talking about? What can we do to prevent your eyes from getting worse? Yes. And that is a change in mindset that is happening. So, the American Optometric Association recognizes that, you know, prevention is better than correction. And they, you know, have this myopia collective initiative where they named a change agent in every state who is supposed to drive the change for changing the eye care industry to prevention of myopia instead of correction.

14:19And I am the change agent from Massachusetts. Hey. But, you know, being the change. You're more like the change, you know, you're agent for America. Yeah. But, you know, being named the change agent, you know, they're not going to help me fund my FDA approval. So, you know, you know, I dream about meeting someone, you know, who can help me with this, who isn't, you know, in group, you know, who isn't currently profiting off of the, you know, current standard of care that, you know, is, you know, selling, you know, two people getting worse constantly in needing new stronger prescriptions. So, you know, I, I just, you know, haven't found the right person to help me. So, I've been doing it all myself. But, you know, it's always hard to find, well, finding the right person to help, right, be it investors or co-founders, right.

15:19It's actually one of the hardest things. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's a great thing to, it's all about trust, right. It's like, it's like a marriage almost, right. Yeah. And for something so important where, you know, you feel you've got a vision, right. Yeah. So, it's, it's amazing when you can do it by yourself, right, because you have total control. Yeah. Yeah. It's like my life's work. I know. Yeah. You're going to launch it, how you want, you're going to have the product as you want, you're going to have the t-shirt color, and design as you want, right. So, it's amazing that you're able to do this, right. So, what are the, what are the other challenges? Like, are there other people that are also the change makers of their state, right. Are there similar products out there, like, or are you the first one, or are you the one that's in the lead? So, there are similar products out there. So, you know, Bowshen Lohm just launched one last year. J&J was just a few years ago. So, the big companies are getting into this because...

16:20Did you look into those, and are you going to have to protect your, your, what do you call it, your patent? So, mine is different. So, all of those lenses are corneal. So, the edges sit on the cornea, which is pretty uncomfortable because your cornea is super sensitive, 11,000 herbs per millimeter. So, I patented anything larger than the cornea. 11,000 herbs per millimeter. Yeah, so, mine... That's like, thinking about space and distance on the, you know, clear, on the, on the microscopic level. It's like, damn, I can't even imagine. Yeah, so, my lens, the edges sit on the scler, the white part of your eye, which only has three nerves per millimeter. So, it's much more comfortable. So, I redesign the lens. That's a huge difference. I've had 24 times on myself to make it the most comfortable lens I could make it, and also, you know, on my three kids. And, you know, hundreds of patients in my practice. And, you know, they, a lot of the time, have tried the smaller corneal lens that is currently on the market.

17:25And, you know, I had a lot of complaints of discomfort. So, that's why I designed it the way I did. 24 times. Yeah, yeah. It's been like 10 years of redesigning it to make it better. So, you know, I put a lot of work into making, you know, my design better than what was currently out there. And, I had to, because, so, my son, he had a congenital eye condition that induced three diapters of astigmatism by three months old. And, astigmatism is not in the middle of the eye. Astigmatism is out on the edge. So, when I first fit him in ortho-caretology lenses, I used, you know, the lenses that were out already. And, they were all corneal. They could only correct the very middle of his eye, but it didn't get the astigmatism on the edge. So, in order to basically correct him to 2020, which took years, I had to make the lenses cross over, you know, the cornea onto the flare together.

18:25So, you took him from, like, basically, he was, they said he's going to go blind. He was going blind in one eye. And now he's got 2020 vision in that eye. Yes, yes, yes. It took years and, you know, I... Talk about case study. Yes. So, I wrote a case study. And, yes, I tried all of the smaller corneal lenses out on the market, and none of them could get rid of all his astigmatism. And so, I had to teach myself how to custom design, you know, hard lenses in order to correct him. And that's how I came up with this design. And I've been improving it, you know, ever since for, you know, 13 years. Yeah, wow. That's incredible, right? The whole journey. So, real quick, how do people find you? Preventative, ICare.com. So, you know, I made the website myself on WordPress. So, you know, it's not, like, super polished, but it's me. Like, I wrote it in my own words. It's all about things I do to prevent, you know, the most common eye conditions.

19:28And, you know, it has my Zock-Dock booking link. So, you can, you know, just click on it and book an appointment with me if you're in the Boston area or my associate who is also great, Dr. Malin Polly. Yeah. And, you know, one day I hope to have preventative eye care clinics all around the world that does, you know, just preventative eye care. Or, you know, if I can convince other doctors to add, you know, the Ivarra Reform Lens as an option in their practice, then, you know, I hope to make it kind of like, you know, in Visaline where, you know, it's offered at all sorts of different practices as almost like braces for your eyes. Yes. And then your glasses would only be for style and fashion purposes, right? Exactly. And maybe just for like meta glasses or something like that for her. Yeah. Well, so some people have really, really high prescriptions. And, you know, they don't get enough sleep.

20:28So, sometimes with really high prescriptions, and if you only get a few hours of sleep, like, you know, the effect of the lenses starts wearing off. And so, you know, some patients have little like extra glasses just for, you know, if they forget to wear the lens or they don't get enough sleep and their vision starts kind of regressing a little. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Honestly, such an amazing session for America's best doctors, right? And so, yeah, I mean, thank you for joining us. And thank you guys for joining us. If you guys want to kind of tune into her episode, I highly recommend it. She's been, you know, five years working with monkeys, placing contacts on them. She was a championship skater and all kinds of ups and downs in the roller coaster of this crazy ride that we call life in between all that. And then trying to save everyone's eyesight, you know. So, yeah, I highly recommend tuning into her episode when it launches.

21:30But thank you guys for joining us as well. And we'll see you next time. Cheers, everyone.