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

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual causes associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Obviously I’m going to tell all guests as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not the way I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from south Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of six cosmetic procedures, including an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband teared up when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even open 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 hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of forty to sixty. (Although many specialists are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facial lifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” 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 SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and pulls the dermis downward with it.”

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

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels expands the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the advancement of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of patient towards this invasive surgery. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are asking now to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are following,” 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.

Deep Plane Technique

Where a more traditional facelift entails elevating the superficial layer, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and longer-lasting result. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or revitalization, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at minimum not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” 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 underwent it because the filler harmed my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can obstruct drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the topic is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up adding two more procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day surgery, including a three-day|