Doctor Claims New Procedure Permanently Changes Brown Eyes into Blue Eyes

Brown-eyed girl no more? According to a doctor in California, laser technology can be utilized to permanently change brown eyes to blue without damaging vision.

Dr. Gregg Homer of Stroma Medical in Laguna Beach, California, reported that he has been working on the technology for 10 years. He reported that the procedure is possible due to the fact that brown-eyed people have blue eyes beneath the layer of brown pigment. "We use a laser, and it's tuned to a specific frequency to remove the pigment from the surface of the iris," Homer reported.

Homer explained that the laser energy is soaked up by the brown pigment in the eye, changing the pigment changes. The body then sheds the altered tissue, and brown eyes become blue within two to three weeks. According to Homer, the brown tissue never regenerates.

To interested consumers, Homer insisted that the patient “won’t feel anything. Your eyes will get a little darker for the first week. Then in two to four weeks, they’ll be completely changed. As an added bonus, Homer claimed that the procedure only takes roughly 20 seconds.

While Homer still has another year of research to complete on the procedure, he reported that tests have indicated no tissue damage took place as a result of the procedure.

Homer is quite sure he will receive approval from the FDA when the research is completed, but for the time being, he plans to test the full procedure in both eyes of voluntary subjects in roughly one year.

Stroma reported that it hopes to begin marketing the treatment first outside the US, most likely in Mexico, Canada, and Europe. The US will hopefully agree to allow the procedure within three years.

Homer stated that this procedure may be life altering for many patients. "The eyes are the windows to the soul," he says. The cost for altering the windows of the soul, however, is quite steep: The procedure will set a patient back by about $5,000. However, Homer does not seem to believe the steep price will discourage customers. Already, he said, thousands of people have emailed him out of curiosity and interest.

"A blue eye is not opaque, you can see deeply into it, and a brown eye is very opaque,” stated Homer. “I think there is something very meaningful about this idea of having open windows to the soul."