‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Couldn’t Even Open Them’

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical causes related to a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” states the thirty-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – look is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor 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 open my eyes. That’s how puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” states London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are built a bit like onion layers,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”

You risk performing surgery on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and causes laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures underneath, allowing doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We will lift the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|