What is your favorite progressive?

[Lee Prewitt]

I would be curios to see what progressives members like best and why. In my office we have used on a regular basis Panamic, Gradal Top, and now I am very impressed with Shamir Genesis. The local Shamir rep was in recently and showed me a real slick computer comparision of all different progressives. It showed contour plots (similar to corneal mapping) and measurements of optic zones in distance, intermediate, and near zones. Very impressive. Comments please.

[John R]

Well here in the UK, in our little home.. The fastest moving are the UK Opt's Pro15 & Truvision, Sola's Graduate, Ve's VariVue. But the one we shiffted most of the Old VII has just died and gone to , and with no suitable replacement at present I am ordering about 90% less a day from them.......
Interesting to note that they are all "old" lenses. Yes we do move a few "Genesis" but not anywhere near the others...

[Lee Prewitt]

Originally posted by John R
Well here in the UK, in our little home.. The fastest moving are the UK Opt's Pro15 & Truvision, Sola's Graduate, Ve's VariVue. But the one we shiffted most of the Old VII has just died and gone to , and with no suitable replacement at present I am ordering about 90% less a day from them.......
Interesting to note that they are all "old" lenses. Yes we do move a few "Genesis" but not anywhere near the others...

John, Thanks for the reply. The lenses you mentioned are older designs. Is this indicative to the UK or just your area? Is the PRO15 and Truvision from AO? I didn't realize you could still get VII anywhere. I remember that one as it was the new kid when I started in this biz back in'81. I know that you will like the newer designs and have very little patient dissatisfaction. Are you a soccer fan like all English chaps that I know. I have a mate from Chelsea who is always lamenting the exploits of the home town team.

[Pete Hanlin]

Actually, I don't fit them all that often, but the Rodenstock Life series seems to be as good a PAL as there is out there. More often than not, I use some pretty old designs, too (VIP or Younger Image).

[Judy Canty]

I tend to favor the Varilux Comfort and Panamic along with the Zeiss Gradal Top. Have started using more of the Hoya Wide and SolaMax. It depends on the client and their previous history with PAL's.

[Specs]

I've been having great success with Hoya's GP Wide. We've had the lowest non-adapt rate with it vs. any of the the others we've used, and we have used pretty much all of the "premium lenses".

[hcjilson]

My personal favourite (John may be watching accounting for different spelling of the word!) is the Varilux Comfort.Much customer satisfaction with it but now Gradal Top and Panamic have broad acceptance as well.The 2 Trivex's I've sold were also well received.
Its a different marketplace than 81 isn't it??:D
hj

[Maria]

The Pro15 is popular with us because it's cheap, but the heights being 24mm, it tends to be mostly bids that have it. The Compact and the Consise do well, as does the B'Active. The Sola Grad seems to be on it's way out. But this is only in our shop, independent practioners would probably have a totally different list.

[Bev Heishman]

What progressive I choose for the patient is dependent on their need and degree of presbyopia as one type truly doesn't meet all needs.

[Jeff Trail]

I got some interesting facts that you guys might be interested in :-) When you get down to the basics the difference between the PAL designs are not really that great. I even got a hold of an independent report pated for by the optometry board that ACTUALLY uses brand names and ACTUALLY used lens that had RX's cut into them. It is a fairly long and complicated report with a ton of numbers but more or less they found that the differences are not all that great between the "premium" and the "non premium" that were tested.. those included the Sola XL & VIP, Essilor Natural, AO Compact, Sola Percepta, Varilux Comfort,Ziess top and Younger Image.
Breaks down every one of those into distant zone width, intermediate zone width, near zone width, drop distance, maximum astigmatic distortion and diopters.
If anyone ever got to see this I think you would be AMAZED how they compared across the board.. the report tells you the method they used the results and all.. something you hardly ever see published by the lens companies.. namely because they want you to believe the hype they put out.
BTW using those nice little programs to show distortion plotting can be manipulated to show what ever you want it to show.. I could take 4 brands and by cutting different RX's and using different adds I could make appear any way I want, I could even take the EXACT same brand and cut 4 different RX's and use 4 adds and the plotting will appear different in EVERYONE of those lens!!.. Be careful how you look at any reports unless they can tell you specifics.
I think it boils down to your fitting ability and your comfort level (confidence) in a lens that makes the difference as much as anything...
As an example I have one account that will only push Varilux comforts "because it's the only one that really works" (according to the account) BUT I do Nu-Polar Images for the sunglasses for this same account and this OD has a great practice (high end) and sells tons of PAL polarized as second pairs... now in the clear pair the "comfort" is the only one that works but for the SAME person that second sunglass pair is in the Image Nu-Polar.. go figure.. they jump back and forth with NO Problem but this OD still won't use the Image in CR39 as the first... anyone else see the irony in this OD's thoughts?
The main problem is that most opticals tend to use a hand full of designs and than that's about it.. and you get used to using the same thing and than it's easy to say "oh those don't work" .. I even went as far to convert some of these guys as to offer the Essilor natural as a replacement for the Comfort and if the patient noticed it or complained would replace that Comfort back into the frame at no cost to the OD.. in the three years I have offered that NOT one time did I get taken up on the offer...
Lets look at the basics.. you have a certain area to see through, you have a corridor length and a convergence point.. not that many things that can be done to make that much of a difference (other than cutting the length for those short fits) ..about the biggest difference is if you compared the older designs where you did not have that many "steps" of power compared to the new generation of PAL's.. but with today's designs you won't really notice that much from design to design, other than if you want to believe the add hype and slick flyers ....
I know that I just get fed up with the hype of a lot of the reps that feed the opticals that they say ours is this and that when you get down to it they (most premium and mid class designs are fairly well ALL the same..other than in price.
I could give you a lot of examples how I proved this over and over to my accounts but one I'm tired of typing, two I am tired of people who just blow it off as "oh yea, I know better" .. to me it makes no difference what design they use as long as I grind it anyway.. I was just doing all this research for my accounts and to save them money on their end.. I'm one of those odd ball labs who actually cares about the accounts :-)
Just my .02 worth.. well as long as this was make it .5 worth :-)

Jeff "anyone else take statistics in College?..boy do you know how to play the numbers if you did" Trail

[John R]

Originally posted by Maria
The Sola Grad seems to be on it's way out. But this is only in our shop,

Would that be due to the fact Sola has the contract to supply Asda/Wallmart with all their lenses. :D

As a further point about Essilor we have now found out that in the UK they are dropping all their Approved surfacing labs thus meaning that we lose any discount we had... We are now stuck trying to inform our customers that all our essilor products are now going up by 20% at least, thats if we decide to keep supplying them. Essilor seem to want to do it all their self, it would seem (strong rumor) that they will even supply puters to shops so they can order direct online.

Lee, Yes they are form AO/sola as they are one and the same here now. True they are all older designs but thats what the opticians seem to want to order. The VII went "rip" in Jan here, there is a post about it..

[Sean]

I usually tend to go with either varilux comforts or essilor naturals. On the short B measurement i use the ao compact. And every now & then i'll fit a panamic or a kodak or a aft mini

[MVEYES]

Vailux comfort and Sola VIP. For short B's we use Panamic mostly. I found Vision Ease Outlook really comparable to Varilux comfort.

Jerry

[LENNY]

I am a witness to the foolowing fact.
In the past 6 years i saw 4 optometric practices bought by opticians. The Optometrists were Varilux only believers.
All the patients were svitched to an Adaptor and later on to Sola XL (main reason is less than half price).
3 patients were not happy with a change. After rechecking all the measurements 2 guys had a wrong RX and the third one was using somebodyelses frame ( we copied the old height of somebodyelses lenses!!)
So everybody is happy now wearing XLs as long as the measurements and min height are ok.
This is my experience

[Clive Noble]

Of course we all have our favourites both in lenses and in frames.

How often have you had a delivery in of the latest fashion frames and immediately start 'pushing' them, we're all guilty of this.

Now lenses, oh yes, it's exactly the same, and let's be really honest with ourselves, there's always the 'big seller' and 9 times out of ten it's what the dispenser wants the Px to have.

This can be for many reasons, he might be getting a coupon from the supplier for a gift from a catalogue. He may be on a profit sharing system on his turnover so wants the Px to have the most expensive.

On the other hand he may really want the Px to have the best so there is a short period of adaptation, and he may also have found out that he has had a smaller redo rate on a certain type of lens design, which means less hassle.

Of course over the last couple of years we've seen the introduction of lenses that don't need the traditional drop of 22-24mm and this has to be taken into account.

I'm in touch with many colleagues still from the UK and can confirm what John R has said, they are still using tons of VIPs, XLs, Old style Varilux, AO Pro 15, Truvision.... lenses which used to be our mainstay in dispensing.

I can honestly say that the AO Pro 15 used to be our 'Top of the Line' after Zeiss Gradal HS and over the last couple of years we've had quite a few Pxs who wanted new specs (same rx), so we updated them but they can't get on with their new Hoya Wides, or Panamics, of Life's etc but prefer their old AO Pros or XLs.

They are still good lenses, OK, I hear you shouting that the design is outdated, but they are uncomplicated and work.
I've got a spare pair of XLs... after I've worn them for 2 minutes, I really can't tell the difference between them and my Panamics and I don't have a simple Rx.

Oh yes, one more point, the lab we use are supplying the XL at the most amazing price, certainly giving us enough margin to be passing them on to patients at next to nothing prices if they really can't afford the best, and I've never had a complaint.

Don't Forget the Oldies!!

[gebe33]

We offer three different price ranges Navagator, Essilor Natural & Varalux Comfort For the shallow B we use Kodak Concise. We will upgrade if someone wants up to because they are having a hard time with them. I've worn them all and can't find much of a difference at all. I think it is in the fitting more than anything else.
Tom

[Excel-Lentes]

We are using the Varilux Comfort on a regular basis. Lately we have been using more and more of the Image lenses. They are a lot less costly and frankly our patients put them on and can see at all distances with great ease and comfort. We are sort of cautious with selecting which progressives we fit so we were a little leery of the Image but now are very confident with it.

I think that the success with PAL's is based on careful measuring, frame selection, fabrication and fitting. Another crucial factor is patient instruction and patient expectations. Many people tell us that when they went to other opticals they were never told how to use their lenses and what to expect. This resulted in dissappointment.
-B:(

[jon 22]

I've been a longtime user of Varilux comfort as our bread and butter lens. I had changed to using the panamic, but recently had about six of these come back. They varied in Rx and add power, but all had the same complaint of peripheral blur. Materials used were 1.6 index and poly and all were Crizal AR. I haven't yeet fixed all of their complaints, but all were spot on with seg ht and pds. I've begun to like the Solamax as a problem solver when the complaint has been a too small reading area or having to tilt head back too far to read. Outlook seems to work for this too. I'm hoping that for these peripheral blur pts that lowering the seg ht combined with a shorter corridor will be helpful.
On a related note, why do people insist on turning their heads to most unnatural angles to look thru the most peripheral pt on the lens on their first exposure to PAL's?

[Joann Raytar]

They probably either felt the swim effect when they first put their PAL's on or someone told them about it. Then they locked onto the periphery. It would probably go away if they ignored it, like the rim of a frame with a narrow "B" measurement, but some folks just won't.

[Richard Naisbitt]

As John R says alot of practitiones in the UK still like the Pro15. Personally I like the Concord as a budget lens. The pentax AF seems well received by pateints, except for their coatings.

[John R]

Richard Naisbitt said:
Personally I like the Concord as a budget lens.

Yep we shift a load of these, must be by far our best selling "Plastic" varifocal..
:D
Richard, You have a problem with pentax coatings? i have a pair of 5 year old lenses (1.6 aspherics) that are well scatched (wear at work) but the coating is still as good as ever....

[Richard Naisbitt]

JohnR, Coatings on their 1.6/1.67 products are superb. On 1.5 they had serious problems a year or so ago, this is supposed to be solved now, but judging by the patient that came back last week with coating breaking down for the second time in six months I guess not. To be fair to them they do do their best to retain patient goodwill, by upgrading them to superior products, but I tend to order them uncoated now. I

[Joann Raytar]

Last year I saw quite a few Pentax coating come back that had been puchased in 2000-2001. So far this year things seem to have improved. I have to admit I am not ordering as much Pentax product right now so I that may be altering our returns. We are doing more Crizal and Zeiss. I have to admit our two most durable coatings appear to be Crizal and, to our surprise, a not so mainstream coating called Real Eyes.

[Steve Machol]

Jo said:
I have to admit our two most durable coatings appear to be Crizal and, to our surprise, a not so mainstream coating called Real Eyes.

RealEyes is from Great Lakes Coating Lab in Michigan. In my capacity as Director of AR Services for Sola, I got to know Mike and Bernie Green of Great Lakes very well. It doesn't surpirse me at all that you've found their coating to be so good. They have one of the best AR labs in the U.S. and are fanatical about quality. Great Lakes is a first class organization all the way around!

[Lee Prewitt]

I would like to thank everyone who has responded to my thread and to all who at least looked at it. I am seeing a pattern within the responses that I find very interesting. The first is price. It seems that many members use a progressive that is cheap and that seems to a driving factor, ie. cheaper is better. The second observation is a reluctance to use, sell, or advocate newer technologies. Many members (all based from posted responses) have dabbled with newer designs but few advocate them. My curiosity is peeked as to why? Are we as opticians avoiding conflict that may be inherit in introducing new concepts (if it ain't broke. don't fix it) or are we driven to provide the cheapest solution that will be accepted by our patients? Before I get blasted, let me say that I truly hope that we all use what is best for our patients, and my only goal is to get a better insight into others thoughts and stimilate this thread. All responses are welcome. :)