Jess Hardiman
Katie Piper has shared an update with fans after revealing she had to have her eye sewn shut for an entire year.
Last month, Katie opened up about how she’d undergone surgery on her left eye, as part of ongoing recovery from her horrific acid attack in March 2008, which gave her blindness in one eye and major damage to her face.
The planned procedure, known as a Tarsorrhaphy, works to join part or all of the upper and lower eyelids to completely close the eye, and can either help the cornea to heal or protect it temporarily.
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Posting a carousel of photos to Instagram, the 40-year-old wrote: “There isn’t really an end point and part of this kind of recovery is acceptance of that.
“Secondly with a disfigurement surgical decisions have to be based around function not aesthetics. In my case I am trying to preserve the eye, avoid perforation and losing my eye completely.”
She added: “Also just because something is on view permanently it doesn’t give people the right to constantly comment on your appearance - you never know what’s going on in someone’s life.”
Appearing on Loose Women yesterday – for the first time since the procedure – host Kaye Adams pointed out that the gang hadn’t seen Piper for ‘five or six weeks’.
Katie then went on to explain: "I had a planned procedure done called tarsorrhaphy, which is a semi-permanent closure of the eye. It's an operation done in theatre and your eye is fully or partially stitched up.
"Some people might be familiar with it, you normally see it when somebody has disease of the cornea. Closing the eye gives it the optimum environment to heal so I've had quite a lot of problems with my eye over the last year and a half. I don't like to go on about it because there's always somebody worse off!"
Adams told Piper she was ‘just so stoic’, which was the ‘incredible’ thing about her.
"It's been quite painful so it's quite a relief for me to finally have it stitched up because it's a lot more comfortable!” Piper went on.
“It's not permanent, it's going to be for just about a year like this then hopefully I can have it opened!"
As for how she first felt after the surgery, Piper said it felt ‘a bit like being pregnant’ as you feel ‘a bit dizzy and nauseous’.
“It's difficult when the other eye is trying to operate,” she said.
“It does tug a bit but that does subside and then you get used to it. I had the operation a month ago now, so I'm actually okay, I'm still wearing a six-inch high heel!"