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

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual reasons associated with a house full of loud preteen kids, but since it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I look,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from south Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the result of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon 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 swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Babe, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Youthful Facial Lifts

Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of individuals electing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – well over a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address heredity, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says London-based cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the facial area. “It’s a major surgery, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of supportive tissue known as the SMAS. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that’s what causes aging; 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 a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers stretches the face and leads to looseness in the dermis – combined with the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports show an 8% increase in facelifts over the past 12 months in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by everyone from Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift entails elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing stress 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 adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block allows for a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It also means that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting many inquiries from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had not intended on undergoing a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

Whether injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is additionally the fact that to some extent, the face gets slightly fluid-filled because its capacity to drain lymphatic fluid has been diminished.” Though studies into the area is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies initiated. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “A lot of surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be quite forceful.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.

Choice and Surgery

For Preisinger, after beginning using injectables, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – particularly when it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in the state suggested that a facial and neck surgery might be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She arranged a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ He added, ‘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 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|