Woman Losing Sight Due to Eyeball Tattoos Has No Regrets

A woman whose eyeball tattoos have damaged her sight says she has no regrets—except for her choice of color.

Anaya Peterson, 33, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, got her first tattoo aged 22 and hasn't stopped since, with her entire body covered in designs—except for her left foot.

"Once I started, I couldn't stop," the mom-of-five told Newsweek. "I will get tattoos until I die."

Growing up, Peterson wasn't a fan of body art. However, it was the late Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington's designs in a music video that changed her attitude.

Over the years, her tattoo collection has grown, and she also invested in more body modifications, including a tongue split (where the tongue is permanently divided to give it a "forked" appearance) and an ear stretch.

She had her right eyeball tattooed purple in July 2020, before tattooing her left eyeball blue in December.

"I saw tattoo model Amber Luke with eyeball tattoos and loved them," Peterson said. "She is so beautiful."

Also known as "scleral tattooing," eyeball tattoos were invented by body-modification pro Luna Cobra and artist Shannon Larratt, the late founder of body-modification magazine BME, in 2011.

Unlike standard designs performed with a tattoo gun, an artist uses a thin needle to inject a small amount of ink under the clear membrane that covers the eye, scientifically known as the "conjunctiva." However, the target area is tiny, making it easy for the needle to go directly into the eye.

Eyeball tattoos are irreversible and have now been banned in Indiana, Oklahoma and Washington. According to WebMD, sclera tattooing comes with a range of possible risks, including infection and blindness. As the procedure is still relatively new, the long-term side effects are unknown.

Peterson's daughter India, then 5 years old, didn't want her to get the tattoos, saying "mummy you will go blind." But other than some dryness, Peterson had no issues until a few months later.

The skin around her eyes and neck reacted first, becoming bumpy and itchy, then in August 2021 her eyelids and face started to swell. At the hospital, her doctor immediately had her checked for eye cancer, along with prescribing her antibiotics. Unfortunately, the medication had no effect, and she noticed that her iris appeared sunken into the whites of her eyes.

After running some tests, the doctors diagnosed her with tattoo sarcoidosis. An autoimmune disease, the white blood cells of sarcoidosis sufferers are unable to fight some types of bacteria and fungi.

Symptoms include raised skin or bumps on and around the tattoo, itchiness, swelling or skin that feels warm to the touch, and pain or tenderness. Tattoos can trigger the condition in predisposed patients, like Peterson, and can lead to sympathetic ophthalmia, an immune response that causes inflammation and can lead to partial or total loss of vision.

"My sarcoidosis is treated with steroids, but that made me put on 28 pounds," Peterson said. "Jamaican cerasee tea has taken more of the swelling out."

Peterson's vision has worsened since getting her eyeballs tattooed, and she needs to take steroid drops two to three times a day to fight inflammation. She is also at risk of cataracts and glaucoma, an eye condition where the optic nerve is damaged due to pressure.

"If I didn't have sarcoidosis, nothing would have happened to my eyes," Peterson said.

Although she found the experience "traumatizing" at the time, she has since changed her stance. However, she regrets not sticking to just one eye, and if she could go back in time, she'd choose the color black.

"They look pretty," Peterson said. "But people barely react to black, hence why I would advise people going against color."

Her distinctive appearance draws plenty of attention, both in real life and online. Her TikTok account @inkedup_britishjamaican1 has more than 56,000 followers, and clips of her body modifications rack up thousands of views.

Although the comments aren't always positive, Peterson doesn't care what people think of her look.

"I honestly can't understand why people think they can have opinions on what others should do with their body," she said. "It has zero effect on them."

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