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

Amanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s impending 13th birthday celebration. Not for the usual reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will reveal 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 the way I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even open my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via online call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, 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 facelift in their 20s and 30s – well over a ten years prior to most doctors’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have 28-year-olds asking for facelifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe individuals choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Human faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a stratum of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You risk operating on people that have underlying problems. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes laxity in the skin – combined with the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this invasive surgery. Statistics indicate an 8% increase in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are now requesting to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a conventional rhytidectomy entails elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the underlying structures underneath, allowing surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and preventing the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re going below, to the deeper tissue,” explains Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It additionally implies that the surgery is no longer being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry terms it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” says Grover.

Individual Experience

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 attempt at “symmetry correction” implied that by the time she reached her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I had avoided the injectable, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”

If injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the aesthetics industry. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is also the fact that in a sense, the face becomes somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain lymphatic fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and further research initiated. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose. “Many surgeons don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, 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 the state suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she required to exit the injectable hamster wheel. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The day before her operation, one day after she’d touched down alone in Turkey, she decided to add a lip lift. “Then he stated, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I believe if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour surgery, including a three-day|