Woman Warns Others After Botched Eye Tattoo

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Warning: Some may find these images disturbing

 A woman from Ottawa is warning others not to consider eye tattoos after the one she received earlier this month left her partially blind.

Catt Gallinger, a 24-year-old tattoo and body modification model, went to a tattoo artist recently to get a “scleral tattoo,” which is a procedure that involves injecting a small amount of ink into the sclera, which comprises the whites of the eyes.

She says that purple dye began seeping from her eye immediately and her eye swelled shut the next day.

Gallinger has since learned that the dye traveled past the sclera deep into her eye itself.

Gallinger then took to Facebook to publicly share graphic and disturbing images of the botched procedure, which she now calls a “massive mistake.”

Her post starts off by saying:

“For everyone inquiring about my eye.
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.

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.

I am NOT sharing this with you to cause trouble, I am sharing this to warn you to research who you get your procedures by as well as how the procedure should be properly done.”

Gallinger, who has a number of other tattoos, piercings, and a forked tongue, believes that her mistake was in choosing a poorly trained tattoo artist who she says used the wrong sized needle, and injected the dye too deeply into her eye.

“I took my eyesight for granted and trusted someone I shouldn’t have. And even if this heals, my eyesight is not going to be back,” she said in a tearful video she uploaded Monday.

Gallinger has now spent the last few weeks seeing eye specialists and has learned that the tattoo caused a “hemorrhage and sclera tearing” which is now compromising her eyesight.

She has been given several different medications, including antibioitics, and steroids, to try to help the eye recover but she says she may still require surgery.

While the eyesight has improved slightly, doctors have told her that it is unlikely to ever fully recover.

“It will either go completely or stay a blurry mess,” she says.

Scleral tattoos are not very common, but ophthalmologists have published case reports of people who have developed serious and untreatable eye infections, called endophthalmitis. In some cases, the only way to stop the pain was to remove the eyeball altogether.

In a video posted on Tuesday, Gallinger said that the experience has left her with “some very bad” and “scary” emotions, but she says she is also battling against her depression and trying to ignore the “negativity” she’s faced while trying to warn others to learn from her mistake.

“I would never recommend anyone do this. I would never recommend that this is a good decision,” she said. “…Don’t risk it. It’s not worth it.”

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