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

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes associated with a house full of clamorous preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will debut her new face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little startling – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” states based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”

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

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional facelift involves elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the risks they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – 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 booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|