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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but since it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a growing number of people electing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the skin downward with it.”

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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift entails elevating the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments underneath, allowing surgeons to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

If dermal fillers ever fully dissolve has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have shown that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although studies into the area is preliminary, warnings on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, mentioned he would never use injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a selection of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|