a lot of people may have seen this type of eye tattoo called a scleral tattoo over the white
part of your eye don't do this very dangerous can cause a lot of problems and blindness and more
recently people are seeing corneal tattooing that can actually change the appearance of
the color of your eye but could also change the appearance of scars on your eye and may also have
some functional benefits as well the question is is this one more safe to do let's focus in
the name for this is called keratopigmentation more commonly known as corneal tattooing and
this has been around for a long time we're talking centuries in more recent history corneal tattooing
has been used to improve the Cosmetic appearance of a large corneal SCAR or maybe a white cornea
or if someone has a hole in their iris from either trauma or a laser procedure or a defect that can
actually cause extra glare and light sensitivity when light passes through that hole and gets
scattered scattered and so they can actually put a corneal tattoo over that area to block some of
the light going through that hole to reduce those symptoms now taking it a step further they can
actually use a laser called a femto second laser the same type of laser they use on lasik they can
take this laser and create a doughnut-shaped tube or cavity within the layers of the cornea
and then they can inject the dye into that cavity that permanently stains the color of the cornea
so this is not dying the actual color part of the eye the iris it's dying the cornea the clear Dome
that sits over the iris and so that will have the appearance that you're changing the eye color now
one thing to know this is not an FDA approved procedure in the United States right now but
there have been a lot of studies case studies that have shown the overall outcome of these procedures
have been fairly good with the main side effects being glare light sensitivity eye inflammation
maybe some eye pain that resolve on its own after days or weeks after the procedure but there are
some reports of these side effects lasting longer in patients and it's making those patients worried
also some bad reports that I looked up of a corneal transplant where the procedure
actually did cause some permanent damage to the cornea where they needed a transplant in order to
see well and all these studies and reports do say the same thing that we do not have any long-term
studies of the effects of corneal tattooing and there are some big questions will the dye from
the corneal tattoo cause any long-term effects to the cornea will this cause any long-term dryness
will this cause any changes to the structure of the corneal like keratoconus and you have
to keep this in mind this is a procedure that does a permanent change to a healthy cornea a
well seeing eye that could potentially have some bad long-term term side effects down
the road and for that reason most eye doctors including me will not recommend this procedure
I can still see the benefit of changing corneal scars white corneas corneal opacities or helping
with glare issues actually having a functional Improvement that way though now there are some
other procedures that can change the appearance of the color of the eye one being a silicone
implant that's implanted right over the iris in the eye and this has been linked to definitely
some problems and issues some causing glaucoma or cataracts another procedure is called laser D
pigmentation where they use a laser and remove the pigment they blast out the pigment of the iris and
this actually causes a permanent damage to the iris and this one makes people worried as well
because Hey where's that pigment go it can block up the drainage ports of the eye and cause your
eye pressure to shoot up and could cause glaucoma and other problems and issues eye inflammation as
well and so this one is also not recommended so that being said keratopigmentation or corneal
tattooing is the safest option of changing the appearance of your eye color at least for what
is available right now I actually looked up the cost of keratopigmentation corneal tattooing and
it can range between 10-$13,000 for both eyes cash price this is not covered by insurance
now I plan on going into more detail about those other procedures in another video and when it's
done I'll put it in the description below the like button let me know in the comments have you seen
these videos floating around on social media or is this something that you would actually
consider having done yourself I'd be definitely curious to hear your thoughts stay focused