05-15-2012, 10:42 AM
05-15-2012, 10:12 PM
I can relate to this. In the service I sustained damage to my left eye that destroyed either the rods or cones in part of the eye. Whichever is used for bright light viewing. I was on duty when a race riot broke out and was beaten by a group of 10 rioters. Busted left cheek bone, nose, three ribs, the left eye was damaged and filled with blood. After a month of being blind I regained sight in the eye but with damage to the interior of the eye. The offshoot of this is I now have about 20% better night sight with that eye because of less reflection. I wore a patch for about 3 months and with the improved night sight, whenever I removed the patch in low light, I could see quite well with my left eye in dim light or near darkness. I use to be able to read in the dark with my left eye. Not total darkness but dark enough the right eye couldn't pick out even the easy words. Old age has changed that though and now I need reading glasses in daylight.
If you want to see what this is like cover one eye then go outside at night and after giving the uncovered eye time to adjust compare the two. You should be able to see better when you uncover the patched eye even though your other eye has adjusted. If you want to see the difference between what I see with my left and right eye look around after dark then look around using binocculars. That will give you about 12-15% which is close to what I get normally between left and right in the dark. The Military tried to convince me to change my MOS to Scout because of the sight difference but I don't like sleeping on the ground sharing my bunk with snakes and bugs so passed on the Scout training. I didn't lose any sight from the incident and gained the extra night sight so consider it an improvement all things considered.
If you want to see what this is like cover one eye then go outside at night and after giving the uncovered eye time to adjust compare the two. You should be able to see better when you uncover the patched eye even though your other eye has adjusted. If you want to see the difference between what I see with my left and right eye look around after dark then look around using binocculars. That will give you about 12-15% which is close to what I get normally between left and right in the dark. The Military tried to convince me to change my MOS to Scout because of the sight difference but I don't like sleeping on the ground sharing my bunk with snakes and bugs so passed on the Scout training. I didn't lose any sight from the incident and gained the extra night sight so consider it an improvement all things considered.