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

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her new face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty 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, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the initial time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type 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 study found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional facelift involves elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, allowing doctors to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use fillers in a client because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|