In my 25 years as a jeweler I have had many clients fortunate enough to have acquired magnificent fine jewelry collections. Designs in platinum, yellow gold, pink gold, diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald, of every size for every part of their body. I thought my experience had allowed me to ‘see it all’, but I stand corrected. An innovation was revealed on Fox News over the weekend, that I in no way endorse. But as we always do here at NYC Diamond Blog, here in the interests of full disclosure of industry events are the ‘believe it or not’ details.
A new procedure is allowing one New York woman to have a piece of platinum jewelry implanted in her eye, according to My Fox New York.
“It’s going to be a conversation maker,” Lucy Luckayanko, who received her eye implantation at Park Avenue Laser Vision in New York City, told My Fox New York. “I will be able to tell people. It will be unique. It will be sort of my unique factor.”
Dr. Emil Chynn, the medical director of Park Avenue Laser Vision, claims that the procedure is relatively safe.
“It’s a very thin piece of platinum that’s designed for insertion on the top of the eye. It’s not in the eye, so there’s no risk of blindness or anything at all,” Chynn told My Fox New York. “She could have a little bit of local bleeding. That could go away in a couple days or couple weeks. She could have an infection, but we’ll prevent that with antibiotics.”
Eye jewelry is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) is warning consumers about the dangers of the procedure.
In a statement to My Fox New York, the AAO said there isn’t “sufficient evidence to support the safety or therapeutic value of this procedure.” They urged consumers to “avoid placing in the eye any foreign body or material that is not approved by the FDA.”
Luckayanko said the reactions to her new eye jewelry have been mixed – with some of her friends saying she is crazy and others claiming it looks “super cool.”