‘I Couldn’t Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons related to a house full of loud preteen children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell all guests as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face puffed up and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he viewed 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 okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facial lifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Our faces are built a little like onion layers,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, 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 ages us; that is what becomes lax and drags the skin downward with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. 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 dermis – combined with the widespread use of slimming medications, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at currently.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Although studies into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the dangers they pose. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue adding more – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself choosing between a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d touched down alone in the country, she opted to include a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘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 adding two more surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|