13 Most Extreme Body Modifications – CBS News

Forked Tongue ioerror/Flickr Why have one tongue when you can have two? Traci Joy Burleigh (not shown here) is a 38-year-old professional piercer in San Francisco who says "tongue bifurcation" is typically done in a piercing shop under sterile conditions.

But Dr. Jon Perlman,a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who has been practicing for 25 years and has turned down requests for procedures he found disturbing, says that the tongue "is a very functional part of the human body affecting speech and eating. I think anyone who wants this should undergo psychological evaluation to explain such a strong drive to stand-out from the norm, and I consider myself a fairly open minded individual."

But doctors say subdermal implants, like the ridges above his eyes, can be risky business. "Hopefully all of this is being done under the most sterile conditions," says Dr. David Bank, director of The Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic, and Laser Surgery in New York. Anytime the skin is opened up, he tells CBS News, there is the potential for infection - and the risk is heightened when a permanent foreign object is introduced.

Of all of these procedures, doctors say the implants pose the greatest risk. Anytime a foreign object is placed in the body, infection is a real possibility.

As he wrote on his blog, "Admittedly it just looks like a growth/deformity and some strange spots, but I just love it".

Ophthalmologists don't love it as much. Last year, the State of Oklahoma made it illegal to color the sclera - the whites of the eyes - with strong support from the Oklahoma Academy of Ophthalmology.

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13 Most Extreme Body Modifications - CBS News