And the blind shall see…
Ian Tibbetts had a partial restoration of his sight when he underwent a radical surgery that involved removing a tooth… and implanting it in his eye. Tibbetts had suffered an eye injury 16 years ago when a piece of scrap metal struck him in the right eye – ripping his cornea. The wound healed but eventually he lost sight in the eye in 1998, and then suddenly… the other eye started to fade.
Now, thanks to the amazing operation, Tibbetts can see his twin children for the first time, instead of as blurry shapes.
He said: “I have my independence back now and I can start looking after the kids while my wife is out at work. Before, the kids were just shapes. I couldn’t make them out. I had to actually learn to tell them apart by their voices. I could tell whichever one it was by the way they spoke and sometimes by how quickly they moved.”
The procedure is called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP), and it involves reconstructing a new eye with a tiny plastic lens and a patient’s tooth. The lens is inserted into a hold drilled in the tooth and then it’s implanted inside the eye. They use a tooth so that the body does not reject the implant.
There’s a catch however, it doesn’t work on all forms of blindness. The patient must still have a functioning retina in order to benefit from the surgery.
Tibbett’s story will be featured on an upcoming BBC One documentary ‘The Day I Got My Sight Back’.
(Source)
