Eye problems and shooting pool

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fireball

New member
I have some problems with my right (dominant) eye. My astigmatism changes and also my retinal focus can change when blood pressure changes due to a tuft in my eye. This results in me having a distorted view at times and also focus issues in my right eye on long shots.

My question; is there anyone here that is either blind on one eye or have a serious eye issue in one eye and is there any techniques they use to adjust how they shoot?

some examples of issues of which I am trying to compensate:
- cue shaft looks bowed or curved when down on a shot
- depth perception/ location of pocket appears to be on a different vector when down on a shot than if standing upright (when cutting to the right more than 20 degrees) on a half table shot, i would make 1/15 when aiming where the pocket appears to be. I have adjusted to a ghost ball type aim when standing up to determine contact point and then shooting regardless of where it looks like the ball will go once i get down on the shot and make balls consistently now, but is unsettling when down on a shot.
- seeing a double edge on an object ball on long shots (like a 3/4 to full table shot on a 7' table)

I had a long absence from the game (more than 15 years) and came back and found that the vision problems I acquired really shake my confidence and take away from enjoyment. I am not aspiring to be as as good as I thought I was and just trying to make the game more enjoyable. Fortunately, the people that know about my vision issues are incredibly supportive and understanding and help me in any way they can especially with other bad habits in my stroke and helping me with how to select different shots that are 'better' for my shooting situation. The piece that is missing, is not getting input from anyone that has really experienced similar vision issues.
 
I had slight astigmatism and cataracts at 67 years. My eye doctor recommended lens implants for both eyes. A great decision with no looking back.

Two important notes: (1) Make sure you have a reputable doctor and (2) While laser surgery is good for some don't get talked into that used car if it's not he right solution. Research, research, research.
 
I have a serious vision problem in my right eye (right eye dominant) as a result of a blunt trauma injury after catching a block of wood off my table saw almost 6 years ago. The impact tore half the zonules that hold the lens in place, so the lens would just wiggle in there and things would go in and out of focus. Then I got what's called a traumatic cataract and I quickly became blind in that eye.

About a year later I found a guy in Philly who did a procedure where they put in a piece a nylon as a support structure to hold an artificial lens in place. Things were great for about a year, but the eye never really heals properly after an injury of that magnitude. The lens has now slipped, so everything in that eye has a double image on the lower right edge. It's more obvious with pools balls than with almost anything else except for headlights coming at me at night.

Lately I've discovered that I shoot better without my glasses. I've always been nearsighted and without the glasses everything looks very blurry, but what I discovered is that I can "feel" the correct shot line and get on it better without the distraction coming from the double vision in my bad eye. Maybe this doesn't make much sense to the folks who think having perfect vision is essential to shooting straight, but I can make a much higher percentage of hard shots this way as long as I can get my stroke grooved. That's always the hardest part IMO, not the aiming part.
 
That makes sense to me. I do a similar thing at times and forget my glasses and look with fuzzy vision. Gets rid of the distortion the lens causes to correct the astigmatism (which is the brain trying to adjust to a corrected image and the brain making things look curved). Thank you!
 
fireball said:
That makes sense to me. I do a similar thing at times and forget my glasses and look with fuzzy vision. Gets rid of the distortion the lens causes to correct the astigmatism (which is the brain trying to adjust to a corrected image and the brain making things look curved). Thank you!
Click to expand...

Give it a try, it may work for you, but it takes getting used to.

I do know you probably won't get much help from the experts on AZB. Everybody I've talked about my problem to just says they have no clue how to compensate, so we blindies are on our own for the most part. Deaf people have it even worse, but it didn't stop Shane from learning on his own. Maybe that's the best way after all, who knows?

Having to deal with people with disabilities makes a lot of folks nervous. My wife's older brother is blind in one eye, and I never knew which eye to look in, so I just avoided talking directly to him as much as possible. Now I know how he felt. In his case he caught a wire in the eye at two years old and has been blind in that eye his whole life. Doesn't stop him, though. You get used to these things when they happen very early in life.

He has no real depth perception, but he is a truck driver who can back up a 45' trailer in tight spots good as anybody. He also was a NY State champion calf roper. Imaging trying to rope a moving calf from horseback with only one eye. He's amazing, but I was 55 when I had my injury, so I will never be able to learn to perceive these things as easily as he did growing up that way.

My vision situation just continues to get worse. The accident tore my iris, so it can't constrict. Now the pupil stays open all the time, just like when you go to the eye doctor and he gives you those drops so he can see inside the eye. I don't need them anymore, I have permadrops. Lol

I have also developed glaucoma because I tore up my meshwork that controls the pressure in your eye. For reasons unknown, the glaucoma from injuries often goes into the other eye, so now I have it in both eyes. The drops I take really dry the eyes out, making my corneas a bit cloudy which really makes the glare in the bad eye intolerable in bright light... just the kind of light you find at the table in a pool hall. And to top it all off, I'm getting an age-related cataract in my good eye, so things are not going too well in that one either. In several years the cataract will get bad enough that the insurance company will have to pay for an implant, but right now they refuse to pay.

Anyway, good luck with your game. There are a lot of visually impaired folks who play at a very high level. Niels Feijen is one, and Kim Davenport had an injury that is practically the same as the one I had and he was able to reach 4th in the U.S. Open a few years later. Of course, he already played like Kim Davenport before his accident, something neither one of us has on our side. :)
 
fireball said:
That makes sense to me. I do a similar thing at times and forget my glasses and look with fuzzy vision. Gets rid of the distortion the lens causes to correct the astigmatism (which is the brain trying to adjust to a corrected image and the brain making things look curved). Thank you!
Click to expand...

Look at this grid if you're having eye problems... http://www.amslergrid.org/
 
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