‘I Couldn’t Even Open My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to have a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are built a bit like onion layers,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

You risk performing surgery on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures beneath it, allowing surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “Many surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|