Recently I wrote about eye jewelry that is attached to a contact lens and I thought that was pretty eye boggling but this is even more eye boggling. These are the highlights from a story reported by Rebecca Skloot in the NY Times Magazine back in 2004.
”The jewelry is a small, platinum medallion gently curved to fit the eye. It rests just below the surface, held in place by the conjunctiva. It is inserted by making a microscopic incision in the conjunctiva, the eye’s transparent outer membrane, and the piece of jewelry (called JewelEye) is dropped into the incision, and the procedure is over.
Picture by Michael Kooren
The procedure was developed by Dr. Melles, an ophthalmic surgeon with the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery. Melles stumbled on the idea while developing implantable devices for treating glaucoma. ”I found a way to safely implant things in the outer layer of the eye,” he says, ”and I thought, Why not make special shapes people could wear for fun?” He started with hearts and stars but now makes everything from euro signs to Harley-Davidson symbols.
According to Melles, the risk of infection is lower with JewelEye than with ear piercing, because JewelEye is sealed in the eye and never exposed to bacteria. It doesn’t migrate, even after millions of blinks and countless eye rubbings, and it’s removable. ”We have seen no complications,” he says, ”and no reason to expect them in the future.” So why doesn’t he have one? ”I’m a doctor,” he says. ”Doctors don’t do that sort of thing.”
I don’t think that too many people are trying it as this story is a few years old but if you have seen it or anything else like, I would like to hear more.
Resources: NYTimesMagazine www.NYTimes.com
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