Is it worth changing your iris color via surgery to conceal your identity?

Question

First off, let me say that I am not going to change my eye color, currently I am writing a story and am playing around with plot ideas. One idea I have is to have a character go so far to not be discovered by her past that she dyes her hair black and also changes her eye color via the aforementioned cosmetic surgery (a second function for having black hair and eyes is that they can help conceal this character when she hides in the dark, I guess you can say that she sneaks around dangerous places a lot so this is also a very important and practical reason to change her appearance).

I've been doing some research on the topic and I've heard stories of possible risks about blindness and irritation that such surgery could have and rumors that new eye surgeries are completely safe, which is quite contradictory. Although I know that I can take liberties with this science since this is fiction I am writing, I still want the story to be as believable as possible. Is eye surgery up to the point where it can be done safely most of the time? If not, then I guess my character will just have to wear contact lenses, then. Also, the main reason this character wants her eye color changed is because she thinks black eyes are easier to hide in the dark than green eyes. Does anybody know if this is true?

Answer 1

There is a place in Panama called newlookiris that will insert a colored disc in front of the persons real iris creating a different colored eye...sort of. There are no patterns in the disc and looks like painted on eyes. It has also proven to be quite dangerous.



There is another place called Occubright...( something like that) who claims he can make brown eyes blue with a laser , but there has been no testing on humans yet and is not available to the public.Eyes could be made lighter if his system works because the laser removes the melanin, but it can't make eyes darker, there is no possible way to add melanin.



So, your character would have had a hard time getting surgery to change the eye color, it doesn't exist.



Does changing the eye color really disguise anyone anyway ? The actual color of an eye won't make any difference in the dark,,,green won't show any more than brown...BUT if there is any light coming in , then the WHITES of the eyes may show.



Changing eye color doesn't do much to hide an identity because if someone sees you from 15 or 20 feet away , the eye color isn't usually visible anyway.

Answer 2

I have never had any surgery of this sort, but I have worked in nursing for some time. It's not really considered a good idea at all to have one of these eye color changing operations. That is why it is so incredibly rare to meet someone who has had one. The colored plate that is inserted into the eye will cover part of your iris, which means you will have trouble adjusting from a dark/light or light/dark situation. The infection rate from this type of surgery is also very high. If you have complications down the road and need to have the implants removed you will be once again be having a very risky and dangerous procedure with a massive infection risk. Remember, if something were to go wrong, you CANNOT grow another set of eyes. If there is any damage, it will probably be permanent. I'd really just consider colored contacts. Light colored eyes are much easier and believable to use a dark set of contacts with. You might complain about putting them in and taking them out, but it is considerably less risky.

Answer 3

Not really, unless you paint the white part of the eye black as well :)



You can only turn them from brown into blue, by destroying some (allegedly surplus) melanin (20% or so)

That's about it and although the scientist who invented the procedure claims it doesn't affect the sight of the patient, other doctors believe it might be a risk for glaucoma and even blindness.



From what i know it won't be available for few years until some more tests are done but an agent or some rich criminal or whatever can of course be one of the guinea pigs if they put their heart into it.



However, to sum it up, you can only turn them from brown to blue so the argument about darker eye color is gone.