Description
Dr. Emilio Justo, a board-certified ophthalmologist, warns against the rising trend of eye color changing procedures, emphasizing that none are FDA-approved and all carry serious risks—including chronic inflammation, glaucoma, and even blindness. He outlines three common methods: laser treatment to remove brown pigment, corneal tattooing (chiropigmentation), and iris implants. While iris implants may be medically necessary for congenital conditions like aniridia or coloboma, Dr. Justo stresses that the risk-benefit ratio doesn't justify these procedures for cosmetic purposes in healthy eyes.
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All right, welcome back at 7:15. Tess, would you risk blindness for beauty?
Because you're already beautiful, right?
Nice save on that, buddy, but my eyes, blindness, just can't even imagine, but some people are doing that.
Social media right now is filled with people who have changed their eye color, and it's not by using colored contacts, right?
So on your site, Susan Campbell is showing us why these procedures—bottom line—they're not safe.
They're not FDA approved.
Yeah, this is a big warning this morning for a lot of people. So here's the thing: the ultimate risk is blindness, but doctors say there's a slew of other things that can go wrong with these procedures.
If you scroll through social media, here's a before and after. From brown hazel—there are no brown hazel anymore.
Some people are raving about eye color changing surgeries.
Patients are going outside the country to change their eye color, believe it or not.
Now it's important to recognize that none of these procedures—zero—are FDA approved.
Dr. Emilio Justo is a board-certified ophthalmologist.
He says there are three different procedures that can change eye color.
One uses a laser to burn away brown pigment.
When you're lasering the iris, you are then creating this pigment dispersion that can lead to chronic uveitis, inflammation, glaucoma.
Another is called chiropigmentation—basically corneal tattooing that involves injecting dye into the eye.
And then there are iris implants.
An iris implant is basically a silicone disc that's inserted inside the eye.
Now these are used under FDA approval for certain congenital, you know, birth-related medical conditions.
Why would it be safe for medical reasons, but not safe cosmetically?
Well, it's not that the safety profile is different, but please understand that people who are born with this congenital defect—aniridia or coloboma—because part of their iris has not developed, it's empty.
You know, the risk-benefit—it may be worthwhile doing an iris implant just to improve their vision and improve all their visual functioning.
Where the risk doesn't make sense is for somebody with a healthy eye.
Correct.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology agrees and issued a warning about the procedures for cosmetic reasons.
They do not recommend doing any of these procedures because of the potential for serious side effects that can, in some cases, be permanent.
The eye is a very sensitive organ, and why take unnecessary risk?
The obvious and safe alternative if you want a different eye color is colored contacts.
If you decide to get contact lenses, make sure you are getting those fit through an eye doctor.
You don't want to buy something online that's a knockoff or maybe part of a costume or something like that.
We always see that around Halloween time when you can pop in those lenses that are funky colors.
That's not what we're talking about here.
Do not do those. Those are not safe.
They can cause all kinds of other problems for your eye.
So go to the eye doctor, get the prescription for the right kind of colored contacts.
Gosh, that is crazy.
That is just wild.
That is just crazy.
Did I make you a little ill while you were eating your Cheerios?
I was sort of watching like this because I didn't want to see a picture of like an eye.
Yeah.
I've seen tattoos that people like in the whites of the eyes that are different.
It's strange.
Thank you for the warning.
Keep your eyes open.
Okay, right.
Susan.
