‘I Wasn’t Able to Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s The Extent of the Swelling I Was’

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual causes related to a home packed of loud preteen kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old property agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal 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 okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a little like onion layers,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and pulls the dermis down with it.”

You endanger operating on people that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, allowing doctors to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. 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’re getting many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a client because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started 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 proposed that a face and neck lift might be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|