Model Gives Warning to Others After Eyeball Tattoo Nearly Blinds Her

A Canadian model is warning others against getting eye tattoos after a botched procedure left her nearly blind in one eye.

Catt Gallinger, 24, opted to get a “scleral tattoo” earlier this month in an attempt to tint the whites of her eyes purple. It involved having ink injected into her scleral, the medical term for the whites of the eyes. But a set of grisly photos posted to Facebook on Sept. 20 shows how the botched procedure has affected her eye.

In one photo, purple dye seeps from her half-open eye. In another, her newly-purple sclera is swollen and crusty against the edge of her iris.

Gallinger chalks the botched procedure up to the inexperienced tattoo artists, who she says used too big of a needle and didn’t dilute the ink enough.

“I took my eyesight for granted and trusted someone I shouldn’t have. And even if this heals, my eyesight is not going to be back,” she said in a video after sharing photos of her condition.

“I am sharing this to warn you to research who you get your procedures by as well as how the procedure should be properly done,” she wrote on Facebook.

The practice of tinting the white of the eye is fairly new, and according to New York-based ophthalmologist Dr. David Flug, totally unsafe.

“Basically my feeling is that it’s insane. It can be done, but it has no long-term testing for safety. You have to be nuts to do it,” Flug told Newsweek.

Even the first tattoo artist to popularize this method, Luna Cobra, says he’s working to make it illegal.

“I’ve been trying to ban this. I think it’s super important that this becomes illegal,” Cobra told Newsweek. “To be clear, this is happening all the time, all over the world.”

“I didn’t think people would think so lightly of this [tattooing the eye],” he said. “I thought they would take it more serious. It looks like people are not taking it so serious.”

A study posted in the American Journal of Ophthalmology Case Reports found substantial risks associated with the procedure, including untreatable eyeball infections — and in worst case scenarios, “loss of vision or the eye.”

Gallinger has been updating her eye’s status in subsequent Facebook posts and says her condition has improved slightly, but warns anyone else thinking of getting an eye tattoo to stay away from the procedure.

“I would never recommend anyone do this. I would never recommend that this is a good decision,” she said in a video post Tuesday, “Don’t risk it. It’s not worth it.”