Are you holding this magazine close to your face?

Finding yourself squinting more?

Maybe street signs look blurry lately. If you're over 40, you're right on schedule for your vision to change.

"Baby boomers are getting into the age where the biggest thing they'll notice is they're having more and more difficulty reading," ophthalmologist Michael Drinnan, M.D., says.

Throughout our lives, Dr. Drinnan explains, the lens inside the eye continually changes.

"You have an incredible ability to focus your eye as a child," he says. "That gets harder and harder as you get older."

By the 40s and 50s, most people develop presbyopia, a condition in which the lens in the eye literally hardens making it more difficult to change shape and focus on objects seen up-close. That's when many middle age people head off to the drugstore for a pair of over-the-counter reading glasses.

Those who have been near-sighted most of their life, however, will get a break. The changes in their eyesight mean they can actually take off their prescription glasses and see better up close.

Most vision changes, however, aren't so welcome.

Author David Spiselman, 59, has worn thick eyeglasses since the age of 5. He knew something was wrong when his vision took a noticeable turn for the worse in 2005.

An exam by Dr. Drinnan revealed that David had developed cataracts. The eye's lens is made of mostly water and protein arranged in a way that keeps the lens clear and lets light pass through it. As we get older, some of the protein may clump together in a manner that clouds part of the lens, creating a cataract that blurs vision.

People can develop small, age-related cataracts in their 40s and 50s that don't impair their eyesight, but after 60 cataracts impede vision. New eyeglasses, brighter lighting, anti-glare sunglasses or magnifying lenses may improve early symptoms of cataracts. If they don't, surgery to remove the cloudy lens and replace it with an artificial one, called an intraocular lens implant (IOL), is the best treatment.

As a professional writer, David was eager to improve his sight through surgery. Also, because he is diabetic, the ability to accurately measure his daily insulin doses was critical to maintaining his health and independence.

When he consulted Dr. Drinnan in early 2005, the ophthalmologist told David about a cutting edge IOL that the Food and Drug Administration was about to approve. After it became available, David underwent two surgeries, first in one eye followed a month later by the second.

"We now have the ability to take a person who can't see up close and replace their lenses to give them the ability to see well at far, up close and intermediate ranges without glasses," Dr. Drinnan says.

David calls the results of the quick, pain-free surgery "phenomenal." His vision is now 20/20.

"Before the cataract surgery, I read very slowly and was convinced that I was dyslexic, since I could only focus on a few words at a glance," he says. "Now my reading speed has doubled. In every respect this is a major improvement, and I owe it all to Dr. Drinnan's ability to do research."

Between lifelong vision troubles and his diabetes, David says he's used to doctors telling him about his health problems.

"For me," he says, "having a doctor tell me about a solution was just so refreshing."