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Video: Park Avenue Surgeon Implants Woman With Heart-Shaped Eye Jewelry
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 9, 2014
Modified Mar 9, 2014
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 9, 2014
Modified Mar 9, 2014
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There are very few things in this life that seem less appealing to us than having a heart-shaped piece of platinum jewelry implanted directly into our eye. But clearly it doesn't bother Kristina Kovalevskaya, the first woman in NY to undergo just such a procedure. Eye surgeon Dr. Emil Chynn of Park Avenue LASEK implanted the 3.5mm heart on the white of her right eyeball recently—you can see a video about the procedure below, but BE WARNED, there is some graphic eye footage in it.
"I’m a person who likes extremes,” Kovalevskaya, who spent $3,000 for the heart, says very understatedly in the video above. "I want to keep it in my eye as long as possible. I like it, but I’m planning to swap it out. I really want to try a new design. Every girl wants to try something new." Chynn claims the cosmetic procedure is completely safe, if inexplicable: "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," he said. "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."
The American Academy of Ophthalmology is not quite as jazzed about the procedure: they say there is not "sufficient evidence to support the safety or therapeutic value of this procedure," and they urge people "avoid placing in the eye any foreign body or material that is not approved by the FDA."
If you're a little less extreme, you could probably just get contacts to achieve a similar effect. But if you don't mind having your eye socket tenderly cut open, and perhaps some localized bleeding, sure, this sounds like a lovely conversation piece for parties. Maybe Chynn, who made the news last year when he offered free procedures to anyone who could get him a date, is using the procedure as a new means of meeting some Ivy league hotties.
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Emil Chynn
eyes
hearts
Park Avenue LASEK
plastic surgeon
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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