‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Was Unable to Even Open Them’

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes associated with a house full of clamorous preteen kids, but because it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous 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 tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals electing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – well over a ten years before most doctors’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are structured a little like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework 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 risk performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study found that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for 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 “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the body’s drainage 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 present. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the companies who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|