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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the result of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are built a little like onion layers,” explains based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and pulls the dermis down with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the dermis – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an eight percent rise in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the techniques are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a conventional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the underlying structures underneath, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting outcome. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue 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 could be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a selection of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, texted 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 doctor advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down solo in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|