The color of the eyes is a very striking feature, especially when it comes to light eyes. More and more people with eyes with a dark hue want to lighten them to get a more bluish, greenish or orange hue, but can we really change the color of our eyes?
Let’s see what are the options that are currently being offered and if they are really safe.
SILICONE DISC:
It is about implanting a kind of colored disk in front of the iris. It is a surgical act, and as such it must be performed in an operating room, although the intervention is on an outpatient basis. In our center we are witnessing what these types of implants are capable of doing to the eye since we have had to explant more than one. They are patients who come to the consultation with exorbitant intraocular pressures, eye pain and very poor vision.
The implant blocks the circulation of aqueous humor -a liquid that nourishes the entire front part of the eye- and causes glaucoma, cataracts or other severe disorders to appear.
It is an option that is totally contraindicated medically, since eye problems can be very serious, even causing irreversible blindness if not treated in time.
LASER:
A laser is used, similar to the one used to perform other types of treatments in consultation, the color of the eyes is lightened. It seems simple and safe, but in reality it has certain drawbacks that make most ophthalmologists not carry it out or recommend it.
This technique burns the surface of the iris using laser shots. This causes the pigment of the iris to gradually disappear and consequently the tonality of the eye becomes lighter. The problem is that a small amount of pigment is released with each shot. These fragments remain loose and can block the trabecular meshwork – the area where the aqueous humor is filtered – generating excessive pressure inside the eye. As in the case of discs, this can cause the appearance of a type of glaucoma that, if not treated, will damage our optic nerve and significantly reduce our vision.
KERATOPIGMENTATION:
In eyes in which the cornea has Whitening due to some disease or trauma, it is possible to make a kind of tattoo on it, imitating the color of the healthy eye. In principle, it has no major drawback, except that the patient’s visual quality will be just as bad, since their corneal problem is not solved. Moreover, by adding a pigment on the cornea, including the black color that imitates the shape of the pupil, it can be even more reduced.
As we say, this technique is indicated for those patients with a previous pathology. Even so, there are centers that have begun to perform a combined laser and keratopigmentation technique in healthy eyes. It consists of creating a space by means of the laser in the cornea itself that will be filled with natural pigments to imitate the color of the eye. For some ophthalmologists, this technique is not sufficiently proven to verify that the application of dye on the cornea can negatively alter its properties. In addition, once the cornea is tinted, it remains like a tattoo, which may vary in color, but it will be impossible to recover corneal transparency.
COLORED CONTACT LENS:
This is undoubtedly the safest, least invasive technique and the one that takes the longest in the market. These are contact lenses, the same as those used to correct myopia or hyperopia, but colored. Its use is totally safe and does not pose any risk to any of the ocular structures. In addition, we can change the color of our eyes as many times as we want.
In summary, there are different techniques to try to change the color of the eyes, but today, except for the use of colored contact lenses, none are safe enough to take the risk they pose.
