14 DAY TRIAL // Body modifications are quite a craze these days. Tattoos, piercings, breast augmentations or reductions, liposuctions - you name it. Thanks to one Dr. Gregg Homer, folks unhappy with their looks can now also change the color of their eyes.
No, we're not talking about contact lenses or even iris implants. Word has it that this Dr. Gregg Homer has figured out a way to use lasers to make people's eyes switch from brown to blue forever and for always.
The rather odd procedure takes 20 seconds to complete and comes with a price tag of $5,000 (€4,700). Still, it would appear that there are plenty of guys and gals ready and willing to part with this much money just to get the perfectly blue eyes they've always dreamed of.
How the laser surgery works
An investigation carried out back in the 1980s showed that brown eyes are essentially blue eyes that have a layer of a pigment called melanin covering their iris. It is this pigment that makes them appear brown by absorbing most of the light reaching the eyes.
The laser surgery pioneered by Dr. Gregg Homer and his company, California-based Stroma Medical, boils down to using a laser to destroy the melanin that gives brown eyes their color. Once this pigment is removed, the blue eye hiding under the pigment layer is revealed. It's that simple.
“If you take that pigment away, then the light can enter the stroma - the little fibers that look like bicycle spokes in a light eye - and when the light scatters it only reflects back the shortest wavelengths and that’s the blue end of the spectrum,” said Dr. Gregg Homer, as cited by IFL Science.
As mentioned, the procedure lasts just 20 seconds. However, it takes several weeks for a patient's eyes to stop being brown and turn blue instead. This is because, following the surgery, the body needs time to remove the melanin destroyed by the laser.
Just how safe is this procedure?
Dr. Gregg Homer and his team have until now performed this procedure on just 37 patients in Mexico and in Costa Rica. They say that neither of their patients has so far complained about any side effects and that their laser surgery appears to be as safe as it gets.
Still, other medical experts warn that, in the long run, the intervention could make individuals more vulnerable to various eye trouble, especially glaucoma. Specifically, they argue that the destroyed pigment can, in some cases, increase blood pressure by blocking drainage channels.