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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes related to a home packed of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her new face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little startling – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even open 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 in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a facelift, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that to some extent, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies 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 client because of the risks they pose. “A lot of surgeons avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, one day after she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We’re going to lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more surgeries,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|