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

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons associated with a house full of clamorous preteen children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way 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 held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facelifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like onion layers,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

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

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever using 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 historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|