Master Eye Shift

[mack]

Has anyone ever had their master/dominant eye shift after an injury? How do you deal with it? Switch shoulders or what?
I am having some funky things going on with my vision and am wondering what may happen down the road with my shooting.

[crs]

Mack,
The reason that I took up big bore lever guns was that I could shoot them either handed. Operations on the retina of my right eye mad it impossible for me to resolve images well enough to shoot right eyed, even with a scope.
So, I switched to lefty for shotgun and rifle (lever actions with peep sight) and moved on. Lefty was slower, but just as accurate. The after a few years of this, I had made poor lefty shots at a bison with open barrel sights of my 1886 .45-90 and out of frustration, I switched to righty and dropped the running bison with one bullet through the shoulders (instinct shot) . My right eye and brain had colluded to allow me to shoot right handed again!
Give it a try - it is better than not shooting and may work out as well for you as it did for me.

[mack]

I cracked my head on the tractor bucket a bit before Christmas and on Christmas eve everything browned out in my right eye. Make a long story short... a "torn" retina, 3 ophthalmologists later and I'm still not sure what is going on. Can't see s... out of it now, all blurred, they are telling me it will take time but I "may" get most of my vision back. I seem to have lost depth perception, and don't seem to have a master eye anymore. Everything looks out of wack now.

[Tycer]

Go buy a daisy BB gun and get a boatload of trigger time. You'll figure this out

[crs]

Mack,
It sounds as if you went to the eye surgeon in time.
It took 3 years or so for my right eye to recover to the point that it did not bother me while driving and shooting (I even wore a patch over it for a while to avoid visual confusion while driving), but it has recovered well enough that my vision now testes between 20/20 and 20/30.
Hang in there and stop butting large metal objects.

[cas]

Not all at once, but as the vision in my right eye gets worse and worse, it's "less dominant". My left side is trying harder to compensate. What happens to me is I'll switch eyes in the middle of shooting (shooting a stage in USPSA, 3 gun etc) without even realizing I've done it. At some point I'll realize my hits are off, or I'm missing all together, or say with the shotgun it'll hit me that I was seeing way too much of the side of the gun.
It's very frustrating and depressing. (couldn't have been my left eye that went wonky huh? heck no)


Hopefully it will get better, but if not you can always learn cross eye dominance. I know a few guys who shoot that way very well.

[Griff]

Mack,
It sounds as if you went to the eye surgeon in time.
It took 3 years or so for my right eye to recover to the point that it did not bother me while driving and shooting (I even wore a patch over it for a while to avoid visual confusion while driving), but it has recovered well enough that my vision now testes between 20/20 and 20/30.
Hang in there and stop butting large metal objects.

+1.

[Booger Bill]

I have a cousin who got shot by another hunter bird hunting in the face and blinded in one eye. He switched and still lives to hunt. He adapted.

[marlinman93]

I've fought this all my life, and mostly won. I was mostly left handed as a kid, but in the 1950's the general consensus was to force a kid to do things right handed. I was fairly ambidextrous, as I wrote halfway across the page, and switched to my right hand to finish a line. My teachers told my parents if I could write with both hands, they should "encourage" me to write only right handed. Now I never understood as a kid why I couldn't just continue to do what was working so well, but I finally adapted. One teacher even brought a towel into class to tie my left hand to the chair, in an attempt to help me learn to only write with my right hand!
Then as I reached adulthood, I suddenly realized I was left eye dominant, when I began shooting shotguns, and a friend kept telling me to keep both eyes open. With both eyes open, I couldn't hit squat with my shotgun. It took me squinting my left eye closed to finally hit, and I continued to shoot with my left eye shut to hit clay pigeons.
Target shooting wasn't an issue, as everyone shot with a blinder over one eye, or closed one eye. So when I shot Bullseye matches, I had no trouble. I damaged my right wrist in my 20's, and couldn't hold a handgun right handed. I ended up having to shoot left handed, so I also used my dominant eye again! It was not only easier, but when I went back to trap shooting later, I began to try left handed shooting. It worked out well, but didn't like my autoloader ejecting empties in front of my face. Once my hand was healed, I returned to right handed shooting, and using my less dominant eye.

[2571]

Early cataracts corrected thru surgery. Took 6 months for my brain to accommodate the change. Still shoot right handed.

Did change from '03 to a Model '17 so I can look over the sights. I do more pistol shooting than I used to.

You'll survive.

Good luck.

[mack]

Slowly getting vision back, looking through a brownish, milky cloud now, but I can see through it!
Wife took me to the big C in Scarborough yesterday and I bought a bucket full of 44wcf cowboy loads, (well maybe not a full bucket but all they had anyways). As soon as the ground freezes up again I think I will head out back and see what I can do, try both shoulders, whatever it takes.
Dr. said low recoil/no shotgun for a couple of months, and to try a patch if I need it to train my left eye.
Bugger of it is that I just had two new pair of prescription shooting glasses made up last November, to the tune of nearly 500 bucks, may need to get new lenses for the right side now.

[Old No7]

I cracked my head on the tractor bucket a bit before Christmas and on Christmas eve everything browned out in my right eye. Make a long story short... a "torn" retina, 3 ophthalmologists later and I'm still not sure what is going on. Can't see s... out of it now, all blurred, they are telling me it will take time but I "may" get most of my vision back. I seem to have lost depth perception, and don't seem to have a master eye anymore. Everything looks out of wack now.

Sorry you did that...

I don't remember hitting anything, but I had a retinal tear once too... They laser-stitched it (which sure was painful for a few days for me) and after a few weeks, it was much better. It does take time... But at least I didn't have the retinal detachment that my late father had once, as the recovery for that was much longer. I know things look bleak at the moment (pun not intended), but I do think it will get better for you. One thing I did, which helped to rest that eye, and took much of the strain off the good one, is since I wear glasses, I covered my bad eye's lens with a soft black cloth. Sorta looked like a 4-eyed Pirate, but it was really helpful to me. And I think it helped me heal faster and "see" more normal, as I was really only seeing images from my good eye. I think the brain gets tired and/or confused trying to merge the clear image from a good'un with the poor image from a bad'un. It's tough to be patient, I know, but while you heal, you can sit back and watch all the shenanigans of our governor........ (Who I actually voted for, 2 times!)

Good luck.

Old No7

[mark08]

Always shot left handed because of bad right eye. Had retina surgery on left eye now my right eye is the better eye. Still not good. But the better. After much trigger time I am now right handed. Ain't easy but in time you can change handiness. Now i am more accurate right handed than i ever was left handed. Could have to do with the practice part Hang in there it will come. Just takes time and practice.

[piller]

I had to change to left handed and left eye shooting for a couple of years due to a Herpes infection in my Right Eye. I am back to right handed shooting now, but it is nice to know that I can do either one when needed.

[mack]

It's tough to be patient, I know, but while you heal, you can sit back and watch all the shenanigans of our governor........ (Who I actually voted for, 2 times!)

Good luck.

Old No7[/quote]
I'm not very patient, but I can be rather persistent... Think I'll just give it time, and bust a lot of caps and see what comes of it.
Oh, I did too, kind of like the old bird, he calls them as he sees them, and I think he sees pretty good most of the time! He could use a Dale Carnegie course in public speaking, though.

[PriseDeFer]

Likely not a bad idea for anyone to practice on the off side, enough to knock most of the strange off it. It's sort of fun to learn it all over again. Not too fun with a bow though.