IF you think tattoos are so over, you’ve got another think coming. The latest in permanent ink? Tats on your eyeball. That’s right – a sharp stick in the eye.
When doctors do it, it’s called corneal tattooing; but when perfectly healthy folks looking for new horizons in tattooing, piercing, scarring, etc., do it, it’s nuts.
Last month, the online magazine BMEzine.com (short for Body Modification) started chronicling three people’s efforts to turn the whites of their eyes blue.
To tattoo the eyes, they used two different procedures. First they used a traditional needle with ink on it, but when the ink didn’t hold, they switched to a syringe that injected ink into the eye. The most recent posts indicate that all was well, with one of the guys saying it felt like he had something in his eye.
“It’s quite amazing,” says Lane Jensen, who saw the tattooing take place at a Canadian body-modification convention earlier this month. “Over the last couple weeks, it’s flooded across the white and stained the eyeball perfectly,” Jensen, who also publishes Tattoo & Piercing magazine, tells The Post. “It’s trippy – and definitely starts some interesting conversations.”
But that’s not to say it’s a good idea.
“Cosmetic tattooing of the cornea can be extremely dangerous,” advises Dr. Sandra Belmont, a clinical associate professor of ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical Center-New York Presbyterian Hospital.
“Infection, perforation and hemorrhage are among the potential complications,” she adds.
There are, however, good reasons for getting an eye tattoo. If a person has suffered eye trauma – burning, laceration or bruising – scars can result, which a tattoo can cover. It can also help people with leucoma – an opaque blemish, usually white in color -and return the eye’s appearance to one of more normalcy.
While corneal tattooing is readily available in New York City for patients, customers will have a harder time convincing a doctor to do the procedure. Jensen, the Canadian tattoo fan, says that while doctors were willing to consult on the procedure, none would actually perform it, leaving it to a tattoo artist.
“I certainly recommend corneal tattooing in a patient with a corneal scar – but I do not recommend these procedures to be performed solely for the purpose of body adornment due to significant vision-threatening side effects,” Belmont says.
Not least of which is difficulty of removal. If you worry about regretting that yin-yang symbol on your ankle, just think how you’ll feel with kaleidoscope eyes.
Dr. Rock is the director of the Nonsurgical Foot and Ankle Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Reach him at drrock@nypost.com.