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

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical causes associated with a home packed of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade before most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the topic is preliminary, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the risks they present. “Many doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|