‘I Wasn’t Able to Even Open My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons related to a house full of loud preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and pulls the skin down with it.”

You risk operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|