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

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons related to a house full of loud adolescent kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a growing number of people electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and pulls the dermis down with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes laxity in the skin – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the surgery is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended 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 eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|