“What does blindness means to you?” asked Dr Cheryl Lee from The Eye Clinic located at Mandarin Gallery Level 4. While blindness might mean the inability to see for some, for the others it might be blurred vision. Although I was surrounded by people who wear contact lens, it has never occurred to me about the percentage of people having myopia aka shortsightedness is very high till Dr Cheryl highlighted the statistics. I was astounded at the fact that more than 80% of the Singapore population is plagued with Myopia!
During a 2 hours cosy session, Dr Cherly Lee shared with the group about her interesting career where she has been working in several countries such as UK, Miami…etc where people place more emphasis on eye care. Thus she was taken aback by how Singaporeans are not as concerned about myopia when she came back to Singapore 5 years ago. 
Besides sharing some interesting facts such as the people who have perfect eye sight have eye balls that are around 24mm, she shared that the reason why most people wear glasses is because our eye balls are longer than the perfect size (24mm). 
She also shared the national average for Singaporean’s eye degrees is about 700 degrees while the Caucasian is about 2 to 300 degrees. The good news is myopia can be controlled through a series of activities that we can do starting at a young age. In fact, the best time to start correcting/ preventing eye problems should start at the age of 4 and lazy eyes should be treated before 6 years old. She mentioned that once we get it right since young, we can be rest assured that the risk of suffering from myopia will be lower as we grow up. That is because kids usually follow through their good eye habits to adulthood. One of the ways to prevent myopia is to use atropine eye drops every night which could help to reduce the progression of myopia by 50%. Another way is to wear Orthokeratology aka Ortho-K contact lens every night which could also help to slow the progression of myopia. In fact, Dr Cheryl Lee has an eye screening package for kids at $98 for any parents who have concerns with their children’s visions. 
Dr Cheryl Lee also further shared the pros and cons of lasik. Unlike many people, including myself, who has the belief that lasik is the only way to perfect eye sight. Dr Cheryl Lee shared the other alternative, the Implantable Contact Lens (ICL). 
She has also shared why many people after lasik would have dry eyes that stayed with them for life is because such procedure reduced the corneal nerves sensitivity. As opposed to Lasik, ICL is less invasive as it does not require deeper removal of corneal tissues or reshape the eye balls. ICL is only 2% of lasik cut thus the recovery can be within 2 days instead 2 weeks.
However going for ICL procedure has its own set of checklist to look at. Dr Cheryl Lee shared that it is important to get a pair of implantable contact lens that fit perfectly. For that, she has TWO of the four Sonomed VuMax Ultrasound Biomicroscopy that are available in Singapore to provide high image quality that allows clear visualization and analysis of structures, including dynamic motion such as lens accommodation.
As contacts might have a high risk of improper hygiene which could lead to contact lens related keratitis and glasses might be damaged in combat zones. Research study has also shown that ICL is one of the most common procedure done in the US Army without any vision-threatening complications such as a traumatic lens dislocation and the stability of the lens in the eye balls has been assured. In fact, ICL is commonly done in US and ICL is part of the United States Army Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program (WRESP).
The good thing about ICL is it is reversible and causes no damage to your natural eye. ICL lens are made of Collamer, which is similar to collagen. Because it is biocompatible so it will not get rejected by the body as collagen is found in our bodies naturally. Rather than altering the shape of the cornea by thinning the corneal tissue as in LASIK, the ICL is easily inserted into your eye behind the iris through a tiny self-healing wound of 2.5 mm. Thus the healing period is cut short to less than 2 weeks, for some it might be even within 2 days and the procedure takes less than 10 minutes. You can even dive after the ICL procedure and the eyes will not get irritation like contacts lens will do to your eyes. For those who are interested, Implantable Contact Lens™ (ICL™) Screening in Dr Cheryl Lee’s clinic is available at $98. Although the procedure is about $5k per eye, about 70% of the procedure cost is covered under insurance. For more details, please check with the clinic. 
Besides the talk by Dr Cherly Lee, I also got to meet Chef Kenjiro Hashida, the person behind Hashida Garo & Hashida Sushi in person where he shared a few of his creations with the privileged group that afternoon.
After the sharing session, we had some delicious desserts (Passionfruit Macaron – $3.50, Yubeshi – $6 & Mizu Manjyu – $15) by Chef Hashida and a specially imported Hokkaido Chocolate Cake ($3.80). All the items can be found at Hashida Garo and I have totally enjoyed ALL the items on the plate as they are not too sweet and tasted really good.
The guests also got to walk around the clinic and get a first hand feel of all the equipment. Personally I am very impressed by how Amanda who was at the Orthokeratology Contact Lens station helped one of us to wear the Ortho-K contact lens and remove it. The whole process is done is a blink!
Walking around Dr Cheryl Lee’s eye clinic is like a visit to a mini hospital for eye for me. Besides the Sonomed VuMax Ultrasound Biomicroscopy, there are many other equipment around. One of them which totally intrigued me is the Optical Coherence Tomography which uses non invasive light waves to take cross-section pictures of the retina and all the light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eye. In short, now I know how my eye balls look like.
I have also done an eye check up and evaluation of my current eye health. Now, I know that the axial of my eyes is 23.58mm and I have a perfect vision of 6/6!
Thank you Dr Cheryl Lee and her friendly team for the fulfilling afternoon and Dennis from The Influencer Network for the invite. =)
The Eye Clinic by Dr Cheryl Lee
Mandarin Gallery 333A Orchard Road #04-25 S238897
Tel: +65 62355833
Email: askme@theeyeclinic.com.sg
Operating Hours: Mon – Fri 9am to 1pm
Sat 9am to 1pm
Website
Facebook
