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

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical reasons associated with a house full of clamorous adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” states the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a little startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates swollen I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

According to 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 most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic 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 people choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we grow older. “Human faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” says Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, 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’s what ages us; that’s what loosens and sags and drags the skin downward with it.”

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

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price surgical travel, and the advancement of new, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are attracting a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Statistics show an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged 35-55.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a more traditional rhytidectomy entails lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments underneath, allowing surgeons to restructure the face by moving the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and longer-lasting result. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or revitalization, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

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 “facial balancing” implied that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”

Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has long been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking anonymously, says he would never use fillers in a patient because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in Florida suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in Istanbul, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|