What is better Synergy or PanOptix?

i dont think synergy is the winner. in general it appears that panoptix provides better distance than and comparable intermediate and near to synergy. however panoptix material could be susceptible to glistening which is air vacuoles. given all that zeiss lisa is the better trifocal choice in my opinion because the material and clarity are both fine. lara was developed after lisa but it was similary to symfony and patient satisfaction wise lisa is better as more people got better near with lisa than lara

at present time i would probably get zeiss monofocal and lisa if i were to start fresh.

i see that people have a tendency to defend their iol choice and that is OK. alcon fans say that glistening is no longer a problem. but then the company has clareon in the works which supposedly addresses glistening. synergy fans say that synergy is best for those with no other eye issues. good luck to you with your surgery.

I totally agree with what you say, in relation to people tending to speak well of the lenses they chose (the exception is when something went very wrong). Sorry, but I thought you were still choosing a lens, but when you say "if I were to start over", I understand you've already had your surgeries. I don't know if I can ask, but what were your choices? Didn't get what you were looking for? It says that now I would choose the monofocal zeiss. I operated on my left eye in early December 2021 and chose Symfony. I was looking for a lens with no fault points (EDOF), with minimal loss of light, minimal loss of contrast and with good near vision. My only mistake was expecting her to give me more close-up view than I managed to get. Now, I'm looking for a lens that gives me a closer view, and that works well binocularly with Symfony. I didn't get to research the ZEISS lenses, because they are not available at the institution where I am doing the surgeries, they only work with Alcon and J&J (I would have to look for another surgeon).

i have symfony in one eye. unlike yours it is the non optiblue version. i got it in 2018.i have to choose for other eye and decide whether to xchange synfony or not. you have the optiblue version. if alcon glistening was not an issue i believe vivity is the best edof. no rings!!! get both vivity at -0,5 & -1.5 and wear glasses for distance and surgery induced astigmatism. my problem is that my pupil expands beyond iol in the dark which with iol with diffractive rings lights up the iol.

with symfony i need +2.5 readers to see video in HD quality on phone. for reading on phone +1.5 would be fine. i do have contrast loss with symfony which is noticeable only because i have one natural eye.

One choice would be to get another Symfony but this time target about -0.75 D myopia. That should work well with your other Symfony and give you better near vision.

The Symfony I have is not optiblue either. Other than the lack of near vision, otherwise, I'm very happy with Symfony. It's amazing to be able to point at any distance and be able to focus on what you want to see. My natural eye has a cataract in the nucleus (which made it myopic) and it is not suitable for comparison, but I don't feel any loss of light or contrast, at least as far as I can remember, from my natural vision. With my natural eye (myopic due to cataract), working together with Symfony's eye, I can see well from 6". Just as you, with Symfony alone, would have to move the phone 20" away to read texts , but it would be impossible to see the videos and photos with quality. I also experimented with glasses, looking for a better near vision with Symfony and, of course, the more diopters, the closer you can see, the more with +2.5D, without a doubt, I can also watch videos and photos in HD , around 6". Before postponing my last scheduled surgery, I did a test for 2 days, covering my natural eye and, trying to do all my daily tasks only with Symfony, and I can say that, I was frustrated. I need a lot more near vision than I thought, maybe I'm trying to convince myself to put Synergy, exactly because it is the IOL that promises more near vision (while maintaining emmetropia).

Yes, once everything stabilized in the Symfony eye, and satisfied with the result (except for poor near vision), my first idea was another Symfony calculated for micro-monovision with -0.5D or -0.75D, I read several studies where this was done, but my surgeon advised me against doing it. According to him, dysphotopsias would be greater than opting for another diffractive lens that was already intended for closer vision if calculated for emmetropia. It was then that I forced myself to choose between PanOptix or Synergy...but I try to keep my mind open to other options...

Yes, the surgeon may have a point. I would think that th2 better vision eye would suppress the out of focus image eye to some degree though. But the real question is by how much... @Jennifer_Guess has had some good success with the Symfony & Synergy combination. Not sure if she is still checking in, but she could provide you with some real world experience with that combination. See this link:

https://patient.info/forums/discuss/part-ii-of-symfony-synergy-lens-update-778764

I had already located @Jennifer_Guess's posts and 12 days ago I asked her questions. In the first one, she replied that she was very satisfied and considered herself very lucky. I'm hoping she answers the second question where I hope she can give me more specific lens comparison info...

-0.75 would not help me. you can try how much your near improves with a +0.75 glasses on the symfony eye.

can the bad distance with synergy be corrected with glasses?

and is the near with synergy better than panoptix near.

It may be hard to find +0.75 readers. But, you could try a +0.75 contact to see what that is like.

amazon has tru vision readers in 0.5, 0.75 and so on.

I have to increase my shopping circle beyond the dollar store!

If you have a Symfony in one eye and are doing well with it, then Synergy could be an excellent mix and match. I have Tecnis MF in one eye and Synergy in the other.

I see 20/20 with my Tecnis MF and 20/20-2 with Synergy and 20/15-2 bilaterally. I did get a toric Synergy IOL. According to the doctor there is no left over refractive or astigmatism error to correct for. Is the slightly worse distance vision with Synergy do to the IOl itself or is that the best that eye can do; I don't know.

Now that I have had Synergy for awhile I think it might be best in a mix and match situation. I say this because the stronger the close add the greater the dysphotopsias. There is a price to be paid for having the best close vision IOL. So at night the halos from the Synergy are much (not just a little) larger than from my Tecnis MF, but somehow when looking bilaterally the brain only presents the halo size from the Tecnis MF. I am thinking if I had 2 Synergy those huge halos might be bothersome. I should add the Tecnis MF I have is the low-add +2.75.

Other than that you pointed out a major problem and that is you need to nail refractive error and astigmatism with this IOL. So make sure to get a few measurements on different days on the latest IOL Master machine and make sure your readings are consistent.

With my combination I can see all distance and almost never need readers, but I am not a big physical book reader. Normal reading on cell phone or computer or listening on audio tape. You probably want readers and good light if doing a lot of close up fine print reading.

And as I have said in the past I think Synergy can provide the best overall visual acuity, but it is also the highest risk IOL. So if you have any other conditions than cataracts and that includes severe long or short eyes I would think twice.

ha ha. i have 0.5, 0.75, 1 and 1.25 from amazon. 1.5, 1.75, 2 and 2.5 from dollar tree.