‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Was Unable to Even Unseal Them’

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons associated with a home packed of loud preteen kids, but because it’s the first time she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” 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 secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the result 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 unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of individuals electing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional facelift entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for 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 “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up adding two more procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|