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

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes related to a house full of clamorous adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – 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 – look is the result of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to 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 fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the skin downward with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and leads to laxity in the skin – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on individuals aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit 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 youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the topic is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of doctors avoid talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|