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

Onemanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will reveal her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the result of six aesthetic surgeries, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via video 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.’”

Growing Trend of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals choosing to undergo a facelift in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see individuals choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Human faces are structured 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 soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin 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 affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes looseness in the dermis – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“People are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the underlying structures beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting tension on the skin because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We receive numerous requests from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I did it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at right now.”

If injectable substances ever fully dissolve has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they move and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its capacity to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though studies into the area is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and further research initiated. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the risks they present. “Many doctors avoid talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning 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 nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a list of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon said, ‘We will lift 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 paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|