‘I Couldn’t Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s The Extent of the Swelling I Was’

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the usual reasons related to a house full of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a growing number of people electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant 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 begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Consider the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what loosens and sags and pulls the skin down with it.”

You risk performing surgery on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” 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 getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “A lot of doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – 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 arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|