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

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes associated with a house full of loud adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will showcase her new face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up 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 had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people electing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what loosens and sags and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger operating on individuals 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 injectable gels stretches the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study found that the percentage of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a conventional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive 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 years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

Whether injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown 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 ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed face specialist, commenting anonymously, says he would never use fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep adding more – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|