A latest craze among Japanese children - eyeball licking - has been linked with a rise of eye-infections among school-goers.
Eyeball licking has been around for a few years in Japan, but its increased popularity has led to many children wearing eye-patches to school, according to Japan Crush.
The new fetish is also called "oculolinctus" or "worming", and apparently helps create intimacy between partners.
29-year-old Elektrika Energias, an environmental science student in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has had her eyeball licked and says that it is a turn-on. "My boyfriend started licking my eyeballs years ago and I just loved it. I'm not with him anymore, but I still like to ask guys to lick my eyeballs," she told The Huffington Post. "I just love it because it turns me on, like sucking on my toes. It makes me feel all tingly." Videos of eyeball licking have been around the Internet since 2006.
Eyeball licking may or may not lead to intimacy. But a sure thing that it does lead to is an eye infection called the pink eye or "conjunctivitis". The eyes turn red in color and release a discharge when they are infected with bacteria or viruses, according to Medical Daily.
Then there are risks of the tongue displacing cells or even scarring the delicate cornea of the eye.
"Nothing good can come of this. There are ridges on the tongue that can cause a corneal abrasion. And if a person hasn't washed out their mouth, they might put acid from citrus products or spices into the eye," said Dr. David Granet, an ophthalmologist from San Diego, reports The Huffington Post.
Energias said that she once had to deal with an infection linked with eye-licking. "I got some weird offshoot of TB in my eye once. I ended up with corneal ulcers and I spent like a month in the hospital," she told Huff Post.