‘I Couldn’t 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 reasons related to a home packed of clamorous adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals choosing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic 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 observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on people that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to looseness in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey found that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals 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. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments 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 tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I underwent 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 long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have shown that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to remove lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would never use fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose. “Many surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who make filler 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 believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|