If it is long possible to permanently modify your nose, buttocks or chest, part of the body remained unalterable: the eyes. But that was before. Before an ophthalmologist diverts a system for restorative aim for aesthetic purposes. On Tiktok and Instagram, the before/after visited videos and their translucent eyes swarm. It is keratopigmentation.
“The technique has existed for ten years but there has been a craze since the end of the COVID-19, and the demand only grows,” attests Romain Nicolau, ophthalmologist surgeon. If, in France, the number of doctors practicing it is counted on the fingers of one hand and most patients are foreign, the National Academy of Medicine published, at the end of June, a press release in order to recall that this practice is “not without risks, or without immediate or future consequences”.
Laser and colorful pigment
Doctors do not change the color of the iris but pigment the cornea, cap in front of the iris. “With a laser, the same as for the operation to remove myopia, a ring is created inside the cornea,” explains Doctor Nicolau. This will create a tunnel in which we come to inject a colorful pigment. The intervention, carried out under local anesthesia, lasts around forty minutes for the pair of eyes and costs between 6,000 and 12,000 euros depending on the clinic and the number of pigments desired. A simple lagoon blue will cost for example less than an emerald-miel lagoon blue.
In order to avoid the largest (and predictable) risk of keratopigmentation – the fact of becoming blind – the doctor performs a topography of the cornea. If the latter is too weak or irregular, the patient will have to be content to live with his brown eyes. No question of digging in its cornea, at the risk of weakening it and creating an irreversible deformation that can lead to blindness. “About 15 % of patients are not eligible for this intervention, as for the abolition of myopia,” attests Romain Nicolau.
Detection of more complex eye diseases
Once this selection is made, other side effects can occur. “People will have a feeling of grain of sand in their eye for weeks, or even more,” emphasizes the ophthalmologist. The intervention can also create vision disorders, such as astigmatism, or lower sight. »Setting 10,000 euros for beautiful azure eyes and having to hide them behind a large pair of glasses, it’s a bit of a shame, we grant you. The view would return to normal in three to six months, reassures the doctor. As with any operation, there is also a risk of postoperative infection.
But the coloring of the cornea presents another disadvantage, much more serious this time: that of not being able to detect an eye disease. “The appearance of glaucoma or a detachment of the retina will be more complicated to detect because the visual field can be ditch by these pigments,” explains Benjamin Memmi, chief of clinic in the center of the fifteen-twing cornea.
Regular retouching
The Academy of Medicine evokes, in addition to the many risks, “aesthetic weaknesses”, believing that the rendering of the color obtained is “too uniform”. “The color of the eye does not appear