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

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual reasons related to a house full of loud preteen children, but since it’s the first time she will debut her new face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are built a bit like onion layers,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers 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 more durable outcome. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her surgeon recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|