Eye Color Surgery Not Safe, Experts Warn
Some people like to think of the human body as a "canvas" — something to be decorated.
This isn't new: we know people have been decorating their bodies for at least tens of thousands of years. And there are always new ways to do it.
One of these newer ways is called keratopigmentation. This is a procedure that changes the color of the eyes.
It can be used to improve the appearance of the eyes of people who have problems with their irises — the colored part of the eye.
But some people are using the procedure to permanently change their eye color for cosmetic reasons.
It has gotten quite a lot of attention on social media. But experts have warned that it's not safe.
To do the procedure, a small cut is made in a patient's cornea, and colored pigments are injected.
But while it's being done at some clinics in America — and has been done for more than 15 years in Europe — it has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
In the UK, it can be done for medical reasons, but not for cosmetic ones.
Alex Day, an eye surgeon from the UK, told The Guardian that people with healthy eyes who have these procedures could have problems with their eye health "that will affect them for the rest of their lives."
Online, there have even been reports of people experiencing blindness.
Day said colored contact lenses would be a better idea, as long as these are provided by an expert.
However, Alexander Movshovich, who does the procedure at his New York clinic, told Ophthalmology Times that, according to his own research, keratopigmentation is not any more dangerous than any other eye surgery.
He uses lasers to do the procedure, at a cost of $12,000.
However, experts say more research is needed before we can really know how safe the procedure is.
