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Catt Gallinger nearly lost her eye after undergoing a procedure to get the whites of her eyes permanently coloured.
The 24-year-old model from Canada is a body modification enthusiast and had recently undergone a procedure to split her tongue in two to make it appear forked.
Naturally, getting a sclera tattoo seemed liked the next step, she told Time Health.
“Body modification is something that is growing more popular every day,” she explained. It’s a big part of my life.”
“It’s not that I wanted to stand out to the public, but for me it’s part of expressing who I am,” she told the site.
She said she wanted to dye her eyeballs purple, they contrasted with her green irises.
Catt posted a series of photos on Facebook and told her followers about her botched sclera tattoo.
She mentioned in a video that the tattoo was done by someone she trusted – her boyfriend, in fact – but she blames herself for not doing proper research.
“So this was done by Eric Brown three weeks ago. As it stands I will have to see a specialist and am at risk of being blind if it doesn't get corrected,” she wrote on Facebook.
“This was caused by undiluted ink, over injection, not enough/smaller injections sights. There are multiple people who can attest that my aftercare was good and any other part of what I am saying.”
According to Catt, her boyfriend did not follow the correct procedure when injecting the ink into her eye.
For example, instead of using a small needle and injecting small doses of the ink at a time, he used a large needle which went too deep into her eye.
“It is my fault that I believed him. It is my fault that I gave in when they repetitively asked me to do my eye,” she explains in the video.
She has since posted updates on her condition.
“I have been to the hospital three times.”
“I was on antibiotic drops for the first week and a half and have been on steroid drops for four days now, with little success at bringing down the internal swelling. The external swelling lasted for almost a week.”
Since then, she has done Facebook live videos and encouraged people to ask her questions so that she can help them to make more informed decisions about body modification.
Though her condition has not improved -- according to her Facebook posts -- she is due for surgery to remove the excess ink from her eye on Thursday.
Sources: TIME Health, Facebook, The Washington Post
