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

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual causes associated with a house full of clamorous preteen children, but since it’s the first time 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 the way I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how 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 hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade prior to most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Our faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block 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 revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort 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 young,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

Whether dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|