‘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 reasons associated with a house full of loud preteen kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – look is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional facelift involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing 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” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they pose. “Many doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|