A mum-of-five has admitted she regrets not listening to her seven-year-old daughter's warning she could go blind if she got her eyeballs tattooed - because she's now losing her sight.
Law student Anaya Peterson was inspired by 'blue-eyed dragon' Amber Luke, an Australian model who got her eyeballs inked blue in 2019 - before going temporarily blind for three weeks.
Anaya, who is 32 and from Belfast, was left hospitalised by the eye alteration and is facing permanent blindness after a suspected reaction to the eyeball ink. The body modification fanatic got her right eyeball tattooed blue in July 2020 and despite dealing with headaches and dry eyes as 'part of the healing process', decided to get her left eye dyed purple in December that year.
After months without complications, Anaya was shocked to wake up in August last year with 'swollen' eyelids as though her 'face had been inflated with air' and looking like she'd done 'five rounds with Mike Tyson'.
As the swelling continued to get worse and worse, Anaya checked herself into the hospital's A&E ward, after prescribed antibiotics did nothing to reduce the 'severe inflammation'.
The tattoo enthusiast had 'medication given through a drip' for three days, before having a biopsy performed on her problematic eyeball the following day.
Anaya claims that her daughter India was never on board with the unusual tattoo, as she feared that her mum would 'go blind' - which she claims she now faces as her sight deteriorates.
Anaya said: 'I was just going to get one [eye tattoo] at first because I thought that if I go blind, at least I've got the other eye. I should have stuck with that.
'My daughter told me that I didn't want to do that [the tattoo] asking, 'what if you go blind?' She wasn't on board with it at all. 'My [top] eyelid started to swell, and my bottom eyelid started to swell.
'It kept getting worse and worse. I looked like I'd done ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
'I took the option to go [to hospital] myself. They gave me surgery and took samples of my eye.
'They wouldn't have been able to do it while I was awake, I would have been an absolute nightmare, so they put me to sleep.
Now she wishes she had listened to her wise 7-year-old. The Belfast, Northern Ireland-based woman was left hospitalized by the eyeball modification after a potential reaction to the ink, and now claims she is at risk for developing cataracts.
“I don’t have 20/20 vision anymore. From a distance, I can’t see features on faces,” she said. “If I didn’t have my eyeballs tattooed, I wouldn’t be having this problem. Even today I woke up with more floaters in my eyes. And that is dangerous.”
She’s “always going to have this problem,” since she can’t remove tattoo ink in her eyes.
But her harrowing tattoo tale didn’t have such a rocky beginning — for months after tattooing her right-eye blue in July 2020, she had no complications. Despite suffering from some dryness and headaches, she opted to tattoo her left eyeball purple in December of that year.
In August 2021, things took a turn for the worst. She woke up one day with incredibly swollen eyelids that looked like she had gone “five rounds with Mike Tyson.” As the symptoms worsened, she decided to check herself into the hospital, where doctors gave her intravenous medication for three days and biopsied her problematic eye.
“I just wanted to be at home watching [TV] to be honest. I can’t even put it into words. It wasn’t nice at all whatsoever,” she recalled. “It was traumatizing to go through. I just remember thinking, ‘I’m not doing that s – – t again, with the eye tattoo. I’m definitely not doing that s – – t again.’
The body modification enthusiast left the hospital “on the mend,” but regrets her decision to tattoo the whites of her eyes in the first place.
“I’m kind of recovered — on the outside, it’s recovered. It’s just inside. I’m basically on the verge of going blind,” she said. “If I could go back in time, I would have done one black [eye tattoo] and left it. I would have done one black. Absolutely.”
Despite the grim outlook, Peterson remains positive in the face of negative comments she receives online.
“I tell my daughter not to care about the opinions of someone else because they’re just ordinary people like you,” she said. “You have positive comments and negative comments, but the negative comments always overshadow the positive ones.”
According to Peterson’s inspiration, Aussie influencer Luke, an eyeball tattoo should never result in blindness if done correctly.
“Unfortunately, my artist went too deep into my eyeball,” she previously told the Daily Star when she lost her vision for three weeks. “If your eyeball procedure’s done correctly, you’re not supposed to go blind at all.”
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