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

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the usual reasons associated with a house full of loud preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will reveal her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a little startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a growing number of people electing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” 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 somewhat worried when I observe individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a little like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”

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

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients 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 technique promoted by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and preventing the tight, stretched appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she says. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I had avoided the filler, 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 indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face gets slightly waterlogged because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the topic is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, one day after she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we remove some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|