‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Was Unable to Even Unseal Them’

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes related to a home packed of loud preteen kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little startling – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – look is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals electing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon 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 is what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the skin – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

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

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer 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 cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the topic is preliminary, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the dangers they present. “A lot of doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|