Hate your boring old eye colour? It is now possible to change it – but side-effects include infection, inflammation, light sensitivity and vision lo

Keratopigmentation: why is eyeball tattooing on the rise?

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2024-11-19 08:30:07

Hate your boring old eye colour? It is now possible to change it – but side-effects include infection, inflammation, light sensitivity and vision loss …

How do you tattoo an eyeball? In the second century, the physician Galen of Pergamum developed a method of cauterising the cornea with a heated probe and then applying a dye made from pomegranate bark, but that’s not how they do it now.

How do they do it now? Procedures vary, but it generally involves making a doughnut-shaped incision in the cornea – with either a laser or a needle – before injecting dye.

Who on earth would want that done to them? Keratopigmentation is often performed to correct a cosmetic disfigurement – corneal clouding, say, caused by disease or injury. Occasionally, it’s deployed to improve the vision of a damaged iris.

Can they make them any colour they want? Within reason, but punters are usually changing their eyes from brown to something else: blue, green, grey, taupe, honey, sand.

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