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Pr Antoine Brézin (Head of Ophthalmology Department at Cochin Hospital,)
On January 15, an issue of Zone Interdite on the excesses of aesthetic medicine presented a young woman succumbing to keratopigmentation, a tattoo of the cornea which permanently changed the color of her eyes. A dangerous practice that has made many practitioners jump.
Have you always wanted to swap your hazel eyes for blue or green pupils? Perhaps you have already dared to wear colored lenses for an evening. But a new, definitive method seen on French TV on Sunday January 15 shocked many viewers: keratopigmentation, a tattoo of the cornea which allows you to artificially but permanently change the color of your eyes.
To make her brown eyes turn green, Sherine is going to try keratopigmentation: a definitive corneal tattoo!?
“Addicted to the perfect body: the scandalous excesses of aesthetic medicine”
? #Restricted zone Sunday at 9:10 p.m. on M6 pic.twitter.com/0n6BVpzt3p— Forbidden Zone (@ForbiddenZone) January 12, 2023
A method for aesthetic purposes of 7,000 euros
The tattoo, performed on a thousand people only for ten years in France, takes place in two stages, as explained by Ophélie Meunier during the report: “cut the cornea with a laser to create a small tunnel“, then “spread the pigment in the opening”. A procedure that costs on average 7,000 euros. Shérine, the young woman followed by the show would have paid 7,500 euros to have the same eyes as Rihanna. His transformation could be followed step by step by the team of Restricted zone and did not fail to puzzle the spectators: “The most shocking thing is that it’s not shocking anymore”, “From worse to worse”, “Debility has no limits” could we read on the networks.
The sequence has not gone unnoticed by practitioners either. Most denounce the drift of a known technique, they ask the question of the motivations and the follow-up to be given to this surgery.
As with Dr. Kirezek, the medical director of Doctissimo and his colleagues:
#Restricted zone Change the color of his eyes by keratopigmentation (irreversible). No retreat? risks? interest ?
What a drift…..— Dr Gérald KIERZEK⚡?⚕️ (@gkierzek) January 15, 2023
How am I going to operate on their cataracts afterwards? ?
— Vincent Paire (@VincentPaire) January 16, 2023
Corneal tattooing is a very old technique which renders appreciable services for various pathological situations. It is the “aesthetic” and commercial drift that raises questions
— Bertrand Vabres (@BertrandVabres) January 16, 2023
A medical and infectious risk
Contacted by Doctissimo, Professor Antoine Brezin, ophthalmologist in Paris also reacted strongly to this drift seen on M6.
“Medically, we can inject pigments. We already do it therapeutically, after a car accident, or a trauma causing unsightly scars. India ink can be injected into the pupil to restore it and reduce the aesthetic damage that may exist in such a case.
The expert recalls, however, that touching the cornea is problematic, even dangerous:
“The cornea is the transparent structure of the eye, the porthole. It is she who allows us to see inside the eye. If you inject pigment into a structure that doesn’t have it naturally, the day you need things to be monitored in your eye, you can’t, same thing to operate a cataract “, he explains. “Not to mention the risks of keratitis infections to which you expose yourself.”
Finally, the ophthalmologist concludes with a broader question, which says a lot about our society: “OWe can also ask ourselves the question of why in the 21st century the dream is always to have blue or green eyes. Why the absolute standard of beauty is to have clear eyes. Personally, I am appalled that we are still stuck in these persistent criteria”.