What Do You Do When Your Eyesight Goes Bad?

[DR Owl Creek]

Throughout most of my life, I've had excellent vision. When I hit 50 or so, my close focus point started getting farther and farther away. Eventually, I had to get reading glasses... Then stronger ones...

I'm older than that now, and I also have an astigmatism. I have scopes on most of my rifles, and even on a few of my handguns. Not every type of optics works for me. Reflex type sights, like the EOTechs are useless. All I see through those is a big red fuzz-ball with bright red spider webs running throughout.

I've tried the Meritt diopter type attachments for your glasses. Those work OK for target shooting, but not for hunting.

For target shooting with handguns, what has worked best is + diopter type type reading glasses, as long as I have a bold, distinct target down range. As long as I can see, I can still shoot respectably. For hunting, however, this doesn't work well.

I've been hesitant to try a corrective surgical fix. I really don't like the idea of having something that can't be undone, like slicing and dicing my eyes, or burning parts of them off with a laser.

What has worked for you? What hasn't? Would you do it again, knowing what you know now? Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Dave

1 Thessalonians 4: 13-17

[Smoke4320]

was a competitive hunter pistol shooter for years. loved shooting rifles with iron sights and showing off now in same boat ..
all my guns now wear scopes, pistols rifles you name it .. other than my carry gun

[twotoescharlie]

hope you don't have to do like me, just grin and bear it. I have inoperable cataracs. only have vision in one eye. Docs will not do surgery until I cannot function.

TTC

[DR Owl Creek]

was a competitive hunter pistol shooter for years. loved shooting rifles with iron sights and showing off now in same boat ..
all my guns now wear scopes, pistols rifles you name it .. other than my carry gun

Smoke,

I know what you mean! Really sucks getting Old!!!

Dave

2 Thessalonians 2: 1-8

[DR Owl Creek]

hope you don't have to do like me, just grin and bear it. I have inoperable cataracs. only have vision in one eye. Docs will not do surgery until I cannot function.

TTC

Wow !?!

Good Luck there Pardner!

Dave

John 6: 39-54

[dilly]

There is vision correction surgery. I've always had bad vision and dreamt if it. If you get the right kind it can help with astigmatism, reduce the starburst effects of light and everything. It's expensive though, but I don't know you and some of the people on this board are what I would consider wealthy so I thought I would throw that option out there.

[hornady308]

I am 48 years old and am going down this road myself. I still have iron sights on most of my firearms, especially my black powder rifles. I just can't bring myself to put a scope on a flintlock. What has worked for me is using very low powered reading glasses. When I use +1.00 or +1.25 reading glasses I find that the sights are a lot less blurry and that the target is a little blurry. This is certainly a compromise, but one that works very well for me. I have also found that aperture sights (peeps sights) help quite a bit as long as the hole is rather narrow.

[Outpost75]

I am now 65. I had surgery to repair a detached retina when I was 60, cataract surgery in the same eye several years later, with an inter-occular lens implant, and laser surgery to correct glaucoma in the other eye, in which eye drops were unable to get the pressure down. I have some nerve damage in the left eye which occurred before surgery, but I see the sights mike a 20-year-old again and can read the Wall Street Journal in good light without glasses.

[owejia]

Had cataracts removed from both eyes, lens implants in both eyes, detached retina repaired in right eye and had laser surgery to shave the left eye to correct vision after lens implant, only use reading glasses to read up close. Can still see good at 67yrs old. Eyes are getting a little blury now and probably need to have laser surgery to burn out the film that makes them blury. Would definetly do it over again. I use scopes on my rifles, but only open sights on my handguns. The only problem with my eyes, one sees near sighted and the other sees farsighted, which makes it hard to judge distance, like mowing beside fences with a 15 ft rotrary mower, hang a fence post every once in a while , and backing a stock trailer up to loading ramp or gate, always seem to be at an angle. Monovision is what the Doctor called it.

[Garyshome]

It's a PITA! Soon everything will have to be coach gun or pump 12 gauge.

[Bohica793]

I went from perfect vision at 40 to trifocals at 50. Every year, the prescription gets stronger and my shooting gets weaker. I am to the point that I am considering corrective surgery but my understanding is it doesn;t really work too well for farsightedness (which is my problem).

[beezapilot]

I had Laser surgery two years ago. I was in the woods and a branch whipped my glasses off as I slid down a bank, couldn't see well enough to find them, about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Crawled around on my hands and knees feeling for them until the sun hit the horizon- figured I'd better get to the truck before it was dark and I was really in trouble. Had a very old prescription in the glove box as back ups and they got me home. (You would have thought I'd been smart enough to CARRY a spare pair). That day made it worth while to me. I opted for both eyes to have distance vision, on the assumption that I would always be wearing safety glasses in the shop and they make those with built in cheaters. Even though I opted for distance, I can use all but the finest iron sights. With the cost of glasses, the procedure will amortize itself in the next decade.... major investment, but.....

My glasses were getting very heavy and expensive, while a luxury- the surgery has been wonderful.

Dilly- I was a lucky guy- never a problem with "starburst", my night vision is like being Superman.

[gray wolf]

I RE-read your post two time and I am not sure what your saying. Did your post imply that you have run the gamut with prescription glasses ? or have you been using the diopter + - glasses from Wally World ?
Diopter enhancement will not help astigmatism.

[NSB]

I went from perfect vision at 40 to trifocals at 50. Every year, the prescription gets stronger and my shooting gets weaker. I am to the point that I am considering corrective surgery but my understanding is it doesn;t really work too well for farsightedness (which is my problem).

Lasik surgery can correct farsightedness just as easily as nearsightedness. My vision went from 20/15 in my thirties to less than 20/20 by the time I was fifty. I got Lasik done and it returned to 20/15 again. However, it only resets the clock, it doesn't stop it. At 65 I've developed mild cataracts so I'm getting interoccular lenses put in next month. They now have lenses that adjust just as your natural lens does. They will give you excellent distance and intermediate vision and reasonable very close vision. You may need a pair of reading glasses for the smallest print.

[pdawg_shooter]

I went blind in my left eye (my dominate one) last year. Something to do with a blood protein causing the blood vessels that supply the optic nerve to fail. Not fixable. They tell me my right eye will go sooner or later. Till then I have just had to adapt as much as possible. I will keep shooting and loading as long as I can. Guess it will be an assisted care place then. Just one more thing to live with.

[CastingFool]

I didn't have to start wearing glasses until I was 48. I wear bifocals now, and every year the prescription gets a little stronger. I use scopes in all my rifles (except my ML) I have a difficult time tracking deer with my bifocals, but I found a pair of + diopter that allows me to focus clearly at 6-8 ft away, and I can track deer then. It also allows me to see the front sight clearly on my ML, but I won't shoot it past 50 yds. Getting old sucks!

[MtGun44]

A week ago I had eye surgery for glaucoma, cataracts coming on, left eye is still fuzzy,
3 kinds of drops at three different time intervals in left, two in right. Scheduled right
eye end of May to keep from losing more vision as the glaucoma pressure chokes off the nerves
to the retina. Not a lot of fun, doing what I can, but it sure sucks. A year and a half
ago, my vision was perfect with glasses, now it is pretty poor in the left, fair to middling in
the right (dominant).
Praying that the left will stabilize and be properly correctable with new glasses and that they
don't mess up the right with the surgery.

Bill

[dbosman]

One of the things that puts me off lasik type surgery is that all the practitioners I know, and I do know several - wear glasses.

[kopperl]

I'm 78.Never wore glasses until I was 50 and then just for reading until I was 65. Had cataract removal and lens implant in both eyes(different times) Wonderful!! I was shooting turtles this morning with an iron sights Hornet.
Probably doesn't work for everyone but it was a miracle for me.

[wv109323]

You can have a set of glasses made to correct your vision for iron sights. The point of focus needs to be the front sight. The astigmatism can be corrected with the glasses also. Frames from Knobloch, Ghemann or Varga can be used. Regular reading glasses from Walmart will not correct the astigmatism thus blurry vision at any distance.
There was a company called Clearsight that made a diopter that clipped on your regular eyeglasses. It corrected the point of focus and your glasses corrected astigmatism. You might watch Evil Bay for one of those.
Search Norman Wong. He is an eye doctor that was written instructions so that your eye doctor can correctly make you a set of eyeglasses for pistol shooting.