My experience of the Symfony Toric lens

Hi Fifav,

It has now been 2 months since I had the symphony lenses implanted.  My best advice is to be patient.  I experienced blurriness for the first several days.  It slowly got better and by 2 weeks I could see 20/20 far and near.  I did not need to wear glasses even to read.  However, during the following 4 weeks as the swelling went down, my near vision receded.  I had to hold my book further and further out to get a clear image.  (See my post above about how the lens can move in the pouch.)  I now wear reading glasses for small print or anything in poor light or when I am reading for a length of time, but overall my vision is great! At my final 6 weeks checkup the doctor said my vision was as good as it could get at my age. I do have some halo effect at night but I still see better than before the surgery.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all of the changes you may see are due to the lens. Aging eyes may have issues that the lenses cannot fix.  Also each of your eyes can be very different and your vision experience with each can be different.  It is hard to explain but for me it is like looking at two pictures of the same scene.  Both are perfectly in focus but it is like they were painted by two different artists. It really doesn't matter because I see well with both together! 

I hope that the symfony fixes your double vision.  Let us know how it goes.

That's encouraging to know it took a few weeks for you to see clearer, I'm day two with new symfony lens and very blurred, can't tell if double vision is present, can't read at all but from what you say I should remain optomistic

YES, stay optomistic!!!!  I'll bet it clears up....

Hi again Patricia

I just wondered if you initially found things more blurry at night? As mentioned to you before, I am now 3 days after having my first implants changed to symfony in one eye (next eye in 7 days). Eye still blurry and a bit of double vision when the light is not good, all good in daylight most of the time. 

Would like to hear more about your experience so I can remain optimistic 😊

I had different experiences with each eye.  In my first eye (right) the blurriness started clearing up on Day 3, and by Day  7, I had excellent vision far, intermediate, near, and even at night.  In my second eye (left) the blurriness lasted much longer.  For a while I was worried that it was never going to clear.  It took 2 weeks before far and intermediate vision were good,  it took 3 weeks before I could read with it.  My night vision has continued to improve over the last 2 months.

I'm not sure why you are having double vision.  Is that with both eyes?  If so, it is probably because your prescription in each eye is different yet until you get the second eye done.  I had tremendous headaches because my implanted eye was 20/20  and my other eye was over 20/500!   The headaches were due to double vision and eye strain.

Also, my surgeon really emphasized that the brain plays a huge role in how your vision results.  The brain has to adjust to the images coming into it and when you think that -- like me, I had very poor vision all my life, 64 years-- you can see how it might take the brain awhile to adjust.  The adjustment included the side effects.  For example, he said the starbursts may diminish as your brain learns to filter them out.  I had a lot of problem with lights reflecting off of the edges of the lens during the first few weeks.  Now I rarely see that.  Nothing in my eye has changed.  My brain has learned to filter out those reflections.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your informative posts.  I had my left eye operated on with the Symfony lens 3 days ago.  At my post op appt 20 hours later, my vision was 20/30 for far and intermediate and 20/40 for near. Unfortunately, my IOP was at 36 so was given Combigan drops until my 1 week post appt.  I am experiencing everything you noted in your recovery i.e. Shimmering and some flashing lights after the drops (cipro, pred and Combigan).  But I am also seeing a very light blue-white haze when I look around outside in bright light. This is more pronounced after the drops.  Maybe inflamed cornea or some edema?  Did you experience this?  If yes, did it go away?  May I expect my vision to improve closer to 20/20 when healed?  

Thank you in advance.

Maggie

Sorry I am just now seeing your post.  By now your circumstances have probably changed, but I'll answer you anyway.  As I said above, my eyes are different.  If I cover one eye and look at the TV, the colors are bluish.  With the other eye, the colors are warmer.  Also, with one eye, the size of the images are slightly smaller than they are with the other, although with each eye separately the image is perfectly clear.  With both eyes, image size and color are normal.  I had exactly the same lens implanted in both eyes, with the same toric and strength, so I can only figure it may be because of the placement of the lens, or my eye structure, or the way my brain is processing the images.

I am now 3 months after surgery.  My night vision is better than it has been for many years, even before cataracts!  I still see small starbursts around lights but often that is when my eyes are tired and they really don't impede my driving at all.

It has been a few weeks now since I had my first eye explanted from the Oculentis to the Symfony and as you said, be patient, the blurred vision will improve after a few weeks, I banked on that and it did come good after 4 weeks so I had the other eye explanted last week, it is still very blurred but I trust this one too will come good, my double vision is much better as well as all the other abberations the Oculentis caused, I am still getting a lot of depth perception issues, do you think this is due to the healing and adjusting phase of the lenses, did you experience this at all?

Hi Miguel

Its 8 days since my second eye was explanted with the Symfony and it is still somewhat blurry (I am a slow healer) but my first eye was explanted 6 weeks ago and my vision at all distances is quite good, I don't need glasses, however, as I had two IOL operations on each eye (meaning 2 incisions) I do now have some astigmatism and my depth perception is a little out but this will be corrected with lasik in a few months, both eyes still settling in with glow and halo's.

Can you describe in more detail please what kind of artifacts you see with the Symfony IOLs with bright images on a TV screen?  Are there any other cases like that indoors for example around bright LED lights on cable modems, etc. or LED numeric displays like on DVRs and digital clocks?

Are you relatively young <50 and/or do you pupils dilate relatively large in dark/dim light conditions?

For example, there is a show I watch daily where the production company logo is a white image on a black background. There is a grayish halo around the company logo. There is also a slight blur (halo?) around the running text at the bottom of cable news programs, which is usually white text. Yes, LED displays show a halo, or rather a lack of sharpness. My modem lights, which are blue, have halos if I walk through that room when it is dark. I am in my early 60s. I don't believe I have any pupil dilation anomalies.