‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Couldn’t Even Unseal Them’

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes related to a house full of loud adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a little like onion layers,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what causes aging; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a study revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street 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.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ 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, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they present. “Many surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – particularly when it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d arrived alone in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|