How an Optometrist Built “Braces for Your Eyes”

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 obtometrist and preventive eye care specialist focused on protecting vision before problems progress. As the founder of preventive eye care, she helps patients take a proactive approach to eye health through education, prevention, and personalized care. 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. I initially developed it for my son who because of a congenital tosis was developing a really, really high prescription really fast by 3 months old.

Basically, he was they said he's going to go blind.

“He was going blind in one end. And now he's got 20, 20 vision in that eyes?”

Yes, yes. It took years and you know, talk about a 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 The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy.

Oh, that is sensational, to open and check out what was the link you said. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jay Slingan. 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 at 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, right? It was an

amazing session. You were all nervous, but I'm just telling you, you killed it, right? Nothing to be

nervous about. I mean, honestly, you did wonderful. So yeah, I mean, we talked all about it. What what an interesting career that you've had. But your main message was about preventative eye care, right? So give me a little background. I was like, what are you talking about when preventative eye care? So I believe in preventing prescriptions before they even happen instead of just correcting them and watching them get worse year after year, which actually, you know,

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, you know, preserving your eye, you know, for when you're 60,

basically. Now, one can't help that when I'm talking with you, I'm always like focusing on my eyes.

You're like, you're like, you're like dry, I am like, hmm, on my eyes, kind of dry right now. Oh my god. So like when you talk about dry eye, like how dry, right? Because I feel like I guess I could

“use little eye drops, but like how dry is dry. 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, you know, unclogging your glands. And it could be as simple as, you know, lead script just wiping your lids twice a day. Kind of like you brush your teeth.

I'd feel like everybody brushes their teeth. No, nobody washes their eyelids, but, you know,

follicles. So, you know, if you can, you know, start early, you can, you know, preserve those glands.

“That's to create 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 stuck in the glands. And, you know, get them to come out. I have an Instagram, Dr. I pimple-popper, 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, no, yes. She didn't mean it, she didn't mean it. But, 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? And it says, Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. So, 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 Shanghai, there was a t-shirt that was called Tivana, right? So, everything now is Ivana, Ivana. Yeah. And I'm fan of Ivana, right? So, it's just natural for me to say, Ivana, but it's Ivana. Ivana. Ivana. Okay. Perfect. So, explain what Ivana is. It's an amazing thing. Tell us about it. Yeah. So, the Ivana 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 prescription really fast by three months old. So, I initially designed it to keep him from going blind in one eye and I realize, 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 eybraces 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, 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 my topic 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 eybraces when they get their first prescription,

it can prevent them from ever needing glasses or, you know, soft contacts as correction.

Yeah. So, 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, reshape the eye to be, you know, the, the shape it needs to see, but I also add in a ring of peripheral defocus 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 leave the contact parameters that I tell them to into, you know, very oxygen permeable material, and then they ship me the lens. Gotcha, Gasha. So, how different

is it from a contact lens? Like, contact lenses are soft, right? And yours is more - - it's hard. So, a soft lens is 99% water. So, you are not supposed to sleep in them ever, because, you know, the 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, so that you can take it off during, in the morning, and you

Like, so I'm 47 now, right? I'm getting near sight in this, you know, my distance is not bad, right?

“But, uh, is, is this something that I can, I can get, and I just pop a minute and night?”

Yeah, so you can get them, you pop a minute at night, you take them off in the morning, and it will embed both distance and reading areas into your eye, so you'll be able to see far away and read at the same time without, you know, having to switch between different 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? Um, so, you know, so far, I've been self-funding and my own kind of, you know, patents and FDA approval. 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. And so, that is actually the

reason why I'm still self-funding. And, you know, it's not a cheap thing. It's, yeah. So, first, you got a patent, right? Yes, that's not cheap. That was like 200k. Wow. And then the FDA approval is 750k. Oh, yeah. So, I would love, you know, to have a big pharmaceutical company, you know, helped 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 I 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, 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. You 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, you know, we need doctors like you that, you know, they care about the cure, right? The fixing it so that, like, 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 I care. Yeah. And then what that looks like when, you know, the normal person walks into the, to see their eye doctor, they're not talking about, okay, how strong of a prescription

“do you need, right? They're 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 I care industry to prevention of Myopia instead of correction. And I am the change agent for Massachusetts. But, you know, being the change, you know, your

agent for America. Yeah. Yeah. 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, 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, to people getting worse constantly and 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

Yeah. Because you need to, it's all about trust, right? It's like, it's like a marriage almost.

“Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, and for something so important where, you know, you feel you've got a vision,”

right? So, it's, it's amazing when you can do it by yourself, right? Because you have total control.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like your 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 what are the other challenges? Like, are there other people that are also the change makers of their state, right? Yeah. Are there similar products out there? Like, or are you the first one,

or are you the one that's in the lead? Mm-hmm. Uh, so there are similar products out there. Uh, so, you know, bouching loam, just launched one last year. Uh, Jane J was just a few years ago. Mm-hmm. So, the big companies are getting into this because... So, are you, are you, did you look into those and you are going to have to protect your, your, um, what do you call it, your patent? Um, 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 or per millimeter. So, I patented anything larger than the cornea, so the 11,000 per millimeter per millimeter. Yeah. So, my, thinking about space and distance on the nuclear, on the, on the microscopic level, it's like damn, I can't even imagine. Yeah. So, my lens, the edges sit on the square, 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. Twenty four 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 and, you know, I had a lot of complaints have just comforted.

“So, that's why I designed it the way I did. Twenty four times. Twenty four 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, uh, so my son, uh, he had a congenital eye condition that induced three adapters of a stigmatism by three months old and a stigmatism is not in the middle of the eye. A stigmatism is

out on the edge. So, uh, when I first fit him in orthocharotology 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 slayer together. You took him from, like, basically, he was, they said he's going to go blind. He was going blind in one of them. And now he's got 2020 vision in that eyes. Yeah. Yeah. It took years and, you know,

talk about a case study. Yeah. So, I, 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 stigmatism. 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 the design. Yeah. 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? Uh, preventative. I care.com. Uh, so, you know, I made, 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. And, you know, it has my sock 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. Melancholy. Yeah. Um, 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. Um, or, you know, if I can convince other doctors to add, you know, the Ibarra reform lens as an option in their practice, then, you know, I hope to make it kind of like, you know, in Viziline 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

so some people have really, really high prescriptions and, you know, they don't get enough sleep.

“So, 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 Actives, 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 our 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. 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 our episode when it launches. But thank you guys for joining us as well. And we'll see you next time Cheers, everyone.