Anaya Peterson is losing her sight due to her eyeball tattoos. She says she doesn’t regret the procedure – but admits that there are a few things she would change

A woman who is losing her sight due to her eyeball tattoos says she doesn’t regret the procedure – but says there are a few things she would change.

Anaya Peterson, 33, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, got her first tattoo at the age of 22 and hasn’t stopped since.

She now has her entire body covered in designs – except for her left foot.

Growing up, Peterson wasn’t a fan of body art. However, when she saw late Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington’s designs in a music video, she completely changed her attitude to them.

Anaya decided to get her eyeballs tattooed back in 2020 (Image: Instagram/inkedup_britishjamaican)

Now she says she’ll ‘never stop’ having tattoos.

“Once I started, I couldn’t stop,” the mum-of-five told Newsweek.

“I will get tattoos until I die.”

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Anaya’s tattoo collection has grown over the years and she’s also invested in more body modifications. These include a tongue split – where the tongue is permanently divided to give it a ‘forked’ appearance – and an ear stretch.

It was back in July 2020 that she had her right eyeball tattooed purple, before tattooing her left eyeball blue in December.

Talking about what made her get the procedure, Anaya said: “I saw tattoo model Amber Luke with eyeball tattoos and loved them. She is so beautiful.”

She got her right eyeball tattooed purple, before tattooing her left eyeball blue (Image: Instagram/inkedup_britishjamaican)

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

Unlike usual designs, which are carried 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”.

The target area is tiny though, 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 on the US.

According to WebMD, sclera tattooing comes with a number of possible risks, including infection and blindness. Because the procedure is still relatively new, the long-term side effects are unknown.

The mum said she doesn’t regret the procedure (Image: Instagram/inkedup_britishjamaican)

Anaya’s daughter India, who was five when she got the procedure, didn’t want her to get the eyeball tattoos, telling her: “Mummy you will go blind.”

But other than some dryness, Anaya didn’t have any issues until a few months later.

The skin around her eyes and neck reacted first, with them becoming bumpy and itchy. Then, in August 2021, her eyelids and face started to swell also.

A doctor immediately had her checked for eye cancer at a hospital, along with prescribing her antibiotics. Unfortunately, the medication had no effect, and she noticed her iris appeared sunken into the whites of her eyes.

After carrying out 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.

She does wish she only had one eye done though and got it black in colour (Image: Instagram/inkedup_britishjamaican)

Tattoos can often trigger the condition in predisposed patients, like Anaya, 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.”

Anaya’s vision has got worse since her eyeballs tattooed, and she needs to take steroid drops two to three times a day to battle the 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 admits she found the experience “traumatising” at the time, she has since changed her view.

Anaya says she’ll ‘never stop’ having tattoos (Image: Instagram/inkedup_britishjamaican)

Despite not regretting the tattoos, she admits she wishes she had stuck to just one eye, and if she could go back in time, she’d choose the colour black instead.

“They look pretty,” Peterson said

“But people barely react to black, hence why I would advise people going against colour.”

Anaya get a lot of attention online thanks to her unique look.

Her TikTok account @inkedup_britishjamaican1 has more than 56,000 followers, and clips of her body modifications often rack up thousands of views.

Despite the comments not always positive, Anaya says she doesn’t care what people think of her appearance.

“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.”