Starbursts, Halos, Glares, etc before surgery.. Better now with new IOL?

Hello tamarinda ... Thank you for such a well written and thorough post. I envy how well you put everything into words, because I don't think I could.

I'm at the 2 year point of my first surgery ... and I still haven't done anything with the 2nd eye, except stress out over it every single day. The stress gets to be so tremendous, that I've found that it's so much easier and feels so much better/calmer when I don't think of it all the time. But of course the consequence is that I'm not getting any better. (I'm up at this early hour typing this because of not being able to sleep due to anxiety/nightmares about my eyes ... which has become a normal, close-to-everyday thing in my life.)

It has been maybe 6 or 7 months (as a guess) since the last time I talked to any ophthalmologists ... with that last one being with the original surgeon (and 2 other visits before that for 2nd opinions with other ophthalmologists). I want so badly to move forward but still have so many question marks floating in my head ... a lot of which you addressed in your post. In fact, I'm in the process of trying to put together a letter to one of the ophthalmologists who gave a 2nd opinion. I have a hard time finding the words to accurately express those questions. It gets to be overwhelming. Not an easy thing to do. (And regular life in general often gets in the way). The reason I'm writing to one of the 2nd opinion guys instead of the original surgeon is because even though everybody who looked at my operated eye (3 different ophthalmologists total) tell me that from a surgical standpoint, that the original ophthalmologist did an excellent job, I'm not sure that I'm always understanding or on the same page as that original ophthalmologist ... I just want to clearly understand what's going on before having my 2nd eye operated on. I find the process so difficult just to talk to a surgeon ... working your way through the front desk on the phone (which is always a pain) to set up an appointment that happens weeks later ... to talk about something that's on your/my mind today, or even at that very moment.

So anyway, back to the last meeting I had (with the original ophthalmologist/surgeon) 6 or 7 months ago ... at the end of that meeting, he left the options wide open, saying that I could still do a lens exchange or have a monofocal lens implanted set for near or distance ... saying that if I chose near, it would be similar to creating a monovision type of setup (adding that monovision only works for 60% of people). His suggestion/recommendation was to go with a monofocal lens set for distance in the unoperated eye. He said that other patients who were unhappy after having 2 Symfony implants, came in for lens exchanges with him. According to him, some of those patients were content enough with their eyesight after having only 1 lens exchanged, that they didn't have them both exchanged. I'm still very afraid about losing my near vision for reading tiny print without using glasses ... it's what I've been used to my whole life. So one of my questions is "can I still save my near vision by either going with a near vision monofocal lens?" ... or maybe they can make the power of a monofocal lens stronger toward the near end than the far end, but maybe not totally near? (if that makes any sense). I guess I'm searching for a way to somehow not lose my reading ability entirely by going with a monofocal lens. The last ophthalmologist said he can do that for me, but then that wouldn't help do away with the artifacts I'm seeing as well as if I went with a monofocal lens set for distance (but then I would need readers ... which I've never needed in my life before).

Also for what it's worth, I cannot read tiny text at all when I only use my Symfony eye. I'm still not clear why that is because I thought that was the whole point of getting a multifocal lens ... so that you wouldn't need glasses to read. Or do Symfony lenses require having both implants in order to read up close. I still don't understand that at all. My natural eye is saving my reading ability right now, because the Symfony alone is just blurred (for small text).

Also, in these 2 years with one Symfony eye and one natural eye, I swear I see more detail in my natural eye... things are much crisper (when looking through a prescription lens with the natural eye) ... and the colors are richer in my natural eye. And very little artifacts in my natural eye (unlike the Symfony eye), even though it still has a cataract.

As you can tell by my rambling response all over the place, I have so many questions still floating around. I'm trying to find a way to feel comfortable about proceeding, but I ain't there yet. Reading posts like tamarinda's help ease me ... even though I'm not sure if it gets me anywhere ... if that makes any sense.