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

Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes associated with a home packed of loud adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, well, a little startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people choosing to have a facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and pulls the skin downward with it.”

You risk performing surgery on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price surgical travel, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a different type of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional facelift entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its capacity to remove lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the topic is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with court orders after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue 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 facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|