‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Was Unable to Even Open Them’
Amanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical causes associated with a house full of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the first time she will debut her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the result of six cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facial lifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”
You endanger performing surgery on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and leads to laxity in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the portion of youthful candidates is increasing, with one-third of procedures now performed on individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a more traditional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “beautification” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I wanted to look youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t believe I would be in this situation currently.”
If dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. One of the contributors to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, warnings on injectables’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting anonymously, says he would avoid using fillers in a client because of the risks they present. “Many doctors avoid talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors facing court orders after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she believed she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d arrived alone in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour surgery, plus a three-day|