Corrective eye surgery ? ? What would you do ?

[toothandnail]

I know this has been discussed here at lenght , I have read most of the threads , as I have been considering having this done for a year or two , I dont know if this is the right forum or not.

I'm 47 , NO glasses or contacts , no restrictions on drivers lic, BARELY.

Here's my vision stats , right eye 20/15 left 20/70 getting worse was 20/50 two years ago.

Right eye dominate , I shoot 3 gun comp , skeet , hunting , pistol , also race motorcycles , and my job also requires judging distance, kinda like shooting , which I can do pretty accurately now.

I can still read pretty good but very small detail is getting fuzzy , left eye is better close up than right , right is getting fuzzy at reading distance

Would I benifit from corrective surgery ? Or am I pretty much AT the point some of you are AFTER surgery ?

I have an appt. next Wed , and can get the surgery on 23rd if I want, and everything else checks out.

THANKS for your input

[MarkCO]

I'm two years behind you, but same general circumstances. I now wear glasses to drive at night and am heading to the eye doctor in a month or so. I'm going to try contacts first. I beleive that the distances and presentations of hunting, 3Gun and the shotgun sports are better suited to contacts. Of the people I know who shoot pistol, almost all are giddy with their corrective surgery, but not all. Of the people I know who have to use distance, about half have said they would not do it again. Several have told me they lost some depth perception. My eye doctor has told me that shooting is basically a good eye exercise and that I should go as long as I can without correction. Once the correction is in place, the eye muscles relax and the vision deteriorates more rapidly. In fact he told me he would not even do corrective on me unless I wore glasses for 6 months to let my eyes relax or it would be a waste of time. Even then, he was not too convincing I would benefit much, if at all and the chancese for less "eye performance" were relatively high.

[hvsmith]

I'm 54 & had corrective surgery done 6-7 years ago - without a doubt it is the best decision I may have ever made in my life. My vision was terrible for both near & far, I am now 20/15 in both eyes, but of course I can't read a menu to save my life, so my readers never leave my neck. I am switching to Open this year, the iron sights are getting harder to see, but you couldn't pay me enough to go back prior to surgery.

[CmbtEngr]

I went through this also, but only had one eye corrected to see far without glasses (the so called "mono vision"). My eye was in the 20/400 range before procedure. Takes some time to adapt...the brain picks the best view now. Now I can see far with my dominant eye, but I can not get a sharp focus on my pistol front sight - foucus doen't come in unitl about five feet away. This was not what I expected. The doc said it was the best they could do with my eye. Be sure to discuss this with your doctor! I was disappointed.

I do OK shooting this way. I use an optic for rifle. When shooting weak side on the rifle/shotgun I need to wear my old glasses to see the reticle/sight through the uncorrected eye. My weak eye works fine for reading, but can't define much detail beyond that. For computer work I use glasses so both eyes fuction. If shooting was a major part of my life (and since you have to wear safety glasses anyway) and I could do it again, I would just get good shooting glasses.

[Bear23]

They probably won't do anything until your vision stabilizes, i.e. your left eye.

Seems like you don't need much correction.

I had IOL's implanted (Star Vision) as my corneas were too thin for laser surgery. I have the monovision, which leads to problems shooting pistols as i do not have a clear image of the front sight thru my right eye as it is set for infinity. Sucks as I'm GM shooter and now tend to be much less accurate then when i had glasses.

Something to think about.

[GForceLizard]

Had my corrective surgery 2 years ago. My eyes were much worse than yours, probably 20/200ish. I was wearing contact lenses that also corrected my astigmatism. For the surgery, I chose to have 20/20 correction on both eyes. I'll be 50 this month. I was already dealing with reading glasses before surgery. Still need the reading glasses after surgery. That was my choice, no mono-vision. Today I'm usually 20/20 and on a good day my eyes have tested at 20/15. For me it was a good decision, worked out perfectly.

[lugnut]

I think about this a lot as well. I'm 48 and have needed glasses for reading since college (far sighted). As I've got older I need correction for both far and near..... of course they are different glasses/lenses. I've also been using contacts for a long time... up until a few years ago I only used them for playing sports like tennis, etc as they would only correct for my far vision... they helped for reading a bit but not enough. I now can use different scripts for each eye, aka mono vision, while shooting and it works well for iron sights. You NEED to get you near vision set up for your dominant eye and get your opposite eye focused on far vision... some doctors suggest to have your dominant eye set for distance viewing but this won't' work for us.

Here's the thing- even if you fix your eyes to 20/20 (far) you will still need something for iron sights. I have not had surgery but I'd make damn sure if you did the surgery, you can at least wear contacts in your dominant eye with iron sights. Of course for an Open gun... you'd be all set since your focus is all on the target or distant.

I'd try to use contacts, they are VERY easy to adapt to after a while.

FWIW my distance contacts are +3.5 Non Dominant Eye and +3.0 in my Dominant eye. However when I shoot... I bump up my Dominant eye to +4.0 which gives me a good front sight pic. My reading glasses are in the +5.0 range... ... Yeah getting old sucks.

[carbon9]

My sister had her eyes corrected about 10 years ago and was fortunate enough to find a doctor who suggested having her dominant eye corrected for up close activities such as reading and automobile instrument clusters while driving. Her other eye was corrected for infinity. No problems and she shoots bullseyes all day long. If you have both eyes corrected the same you will end up wearing glasses or contacts for the opposite of what you were corrected for.

[DMAC]

If your left eye has changed from 20/50 to 20/70 and you see up close with OS (left eye) you have had a slight myopic shift (probably changed from a -1.00 to a -1.50 or so). This can sometimes be due to a cataract formation.

If your dominant eye is 20/15 and you are able to go without reading glasses due to your myopia OS, then I would not recommend doing anything except maybe to get a contact lens OS or glasses as needed if you are having difficulty with fine detail at distance.

It really depends on your consult. If everything looks good, I would recommend rechecking your refraction(prescription) OS in 1 year to make sure it is stable, and also you need to decide what you want.

Surgery to give you better distance OS will take away your near vision and you will be in reading glasses for pretty much all of you near vision tasks.

I do this for a living. Luckily for all of you, I'm a much better surgeon than I am a 3Gunner!

Edited January 16, 2012 by DMAC

[toothandnail]

If your left eye has changed from 20/50 to 20/70 and you see up close with OS (left eye) you have had a slight myopic shift (probably changed from a -1.00 to a -1.50 or so). This can sometimes be due to a cataract formation.

If your dominant eye is 20/15 and you are able to go without reading glasses due to your myopia OS, then I would not recommend doing anything except maybe to get a contact lens OS or glasses as needed if you are having difficulty with fine detail at distance.

It really depends on your consult. If everything looks good, I would recommend rechecking your refraction(prescription) OS in 1 year to make sure it is stable, and also you need to decide what you want.

Surgery to give you better distance OS will take away your near vision and you will be in reading glasses for pretty much all of you near vision tasks.

I do this for a living. Luckily for all of you, I'm a much better surgeon than I am a 3Gunner!

Thanks Dmac !

That's kinda where I'm leaning at the moment (1 contact) as it seems surgery won't nessasarily change much in the way I see/shoot.

I can still see better than I shoot

[shopgun]

If cataract surgery is needed, I would STRONGLY advise you to look into Alcon Restor multifocal lense implants. I had them implanted a year ago and my wife did a few months later. They have changed our lives. We now don't need glasses for ANYTHING. Not near, not far not anywhere! Medicare picks up the tab for mono-focal implants and if I recall, The up charge on the multifocals were about $1500 per eye. Best money I ever spent. I can see my fingerprints, my front sight , my target. FWIW, not all opthalmologists are authorized to implant these. You can go to Alcon's website for a list of those who can in your area. The only downside is I see concentric circles around a bright light at night. Their website says a few % will experiance this. It doesn't affect my night driving, however. My wife has not experianced this. Haven't shot my open gun in a year, too much fun seeing the sights.

[dchang0]

Before you do ANY surgery, get the book "Creating Your Personal Vision" by Dr. Samuel Berne. It's a bit New-Agey, but the guy was able to improve his patients' vision dramatically.

For instance, he names Barbara, who started with -10.00 diopters and worked with him for 3 months. She was able to improve her prescription by a whopping 30%.

He teaches eye exercises and uses various special glasses and devices to retrain your eyes and the surrounding muscles to focus properly.

He sells an updated 2011 version of his book in e-book format that can be bought on lulu.com for $10, or you can get the older hardcopy for $2 on half.com.

Surgery may eventually be necessary for you, but try Berne's non-invasive methods first before going under the knife.

[twodownzero]

I watched a video on youtube of the Lasik procedure and I almost threw up; my body went into shock. Normally nothing like that bothers me.

I'll be wearing my contacts to shoot for a long time.

[ben b.]

My vision is same as OP, 20/15 dominant/right and 20/70 or worse in the nondom/left, has been maybe 25 yrs since last eye exam (not counting vison tests). Astigmatism since a kid, no other known visual problems. I don't wear glasses anymore nor do I need them, as the right eye gets me thru everything. Have been thinking of lasik to correct the astig in left eye; I have not coughed up the $$$$ for an optho consult yet. Reasonable thinking for lasik or am I missing something?

TY

Ben

[DMAC]

My vision is same as OP, 20/15 dominant/right and 20/70 or worse in the nondom/left, has been maybe 25 yrs since last eye exam (not counting vison tests). Astigmatism since a kid, no other known visual problems. I don't wear glasses anymore nor do I need them, as the right eye gets me thru everything. Have been thinking of lasik to correct the astig in left eye; I have not coughed up the $$$$ for an optho consult yet. Reasonable thinking for lasik or am I missing something?

TY

Ben

I know a good refractive surgeon in Eugene, but you said it yourself, "I don't wear glasses anymore nor do I need them". If you say this to a refractive surgeon and he tells you that you still need refractive surgery.......run away as fast as you can.

[Mick]

I had my Lasik when I was 53 (2008), it was great until last year. They did an enhancement in September and mistakenly "flipped" my left eye to near sighted.

I have to wear a -.50 30 day contact until March when they can TRY again. I lost some distance in my right eye but the front sight got a bit clearer.

The 200 yard steel is harder though. I learned again why Doctors call it a PRACTICE!!!! Mine was $3500 for a lifetime treatment (I was a LEO then).

I think I would do it again but also know that when you're in your late 50s, early 60s, it just isnt going to be the same. Too bad though because there's only two things I hated losing when getting older, one was the eyesight...