‘My Eyes Were So Puffy I Was Unable to Even Unseal Them’

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the typical causes related to a home packed of loud preteen kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her new face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” states the 30-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though secured by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last 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 house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone jumped me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – well over a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I see individuals opting for it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A rhytidectomy, also known as a facelift, lifts the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are built a little like onion layers,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue called the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that is what loosens and sags and drags the dermis down with it.”

You risk operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of novel, famous-figure-promoted surgical techniques are driving a new kind of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now performed on patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the deep plane facelift, a technique evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a conventional facelift entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” says prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It also means that the procedure is not just 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 many inquiries from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facelift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be in this situation right now.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they move and can block drainage pathways. A contributing factor to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been issued, and further research initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the risks they pose. “Many doctors don’t want to discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after expressing worries.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, once she started 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 proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she required to finally step off the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, sent to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as 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 forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d touched down solo in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the half-day surgery, plus a three-day|