Now that tattoos are mainstream and piercings passé, America’s youth have taken to some extreme measures to make a statement. And for Lucy Luckayanko of New York City, that statement comes in the form of a permanent, platinum twinkle implanted smack-dab onto her eyeball.
Apparently, Lucy will be the first in NYC to get the Safesight jewellery implant, which involves inserting the jewellery between the sclera (the white part of the eye) and the conjunctiva (the clear, outer membrane). Europe and Los Angeles, though, have already seen hundreds of the surgeries done. And while the $US3000 implant has yet to be approved by US authorities, Dr Emil Chynn, the medical director of Park Avenue Laser Vision and surgeon to Luckayanko, assures My FoxNy that it’s “actually pretty safe”. At the very least, she’ll still be able to see probably, Dr Chynn explains:
It’s a very thin piece of platinum that’s designed for insertion on the top of the eye, it’s not in the eye so there’s no risk of blindness or anything at all. She could have a little bit of local bleeding. That could go away in a couple days or couple weeks. She could have an infection but we’ll prevent that with antibiotics.
In fact, Dr Chynn sees the surgery as just another way to “advance the science of opthalmology.” Unfortunately, the American Academy of Opthalmology (AAO) has yet to receive that particular memo. In a statement to Fox 5, the AAO wrote that there isn’t “sufficient evidence to support the safety or therapeutic value of this procedure” and that people should “avoid placing in the eye any foreign body or material that is not approved by the FDA.”
Lucy, undeterred by a bunch of wet blanket scientists, went through with the procedure and couldn’t be happier. Describing her friends’ reactions, Lucy noted that “50 per cent of [her] friends are like oh my god it’s super cool.” And if that isn’t worth a few weeks of eye bleeding, we don’t know what is. [MyFoxNY via Daily Mail]