‘I Couldn’t Even Unseal My Eyes. That’s How Swollen I Was’

Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday celebration. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a home packed of loud adolescent children, but since it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to friends and extended family. “Obviously I’m going to inform all guests as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, well, a little surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the result of six cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, performed by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My poor husband teared up when he viewed me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is among a rising count of people choosing to undergo a facelift in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years before 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 requesting facial lifts,” says based in London cosmetic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a ex-NHS doctor who specialises in the facial area. “It’s a major procedure, and I’m a somewhat worried when I observe people choosing it as a personal preference.”

Explaining the Facelift Procedure

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” explains Kent-based face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue called the SMAS. Consider the SMAS as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis down with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on individuals that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an ethical plastic surgeon to follow

Once the preserve of moneyed older people, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of dermal fillers stretches the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the advancement of novel, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are attracting a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Statistics indicate an eight percent rise in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a survey revealed that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for individuals aged 35-55.

“Patients are now requesting to look like the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a method evangelised by figures including Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Deep Plane Technique

While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the deep plane technique. “It is the deeper tissue that is adjusted. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “beautification” 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 getting a facelift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an effort at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the injectable harmed my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”

If dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have shown that not only do they rarely fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘puffy appearance’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat waterlogged because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is early-stage, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they present. “Many surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who make injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, once she started injecting filler, she believed she had to keep adding more – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a selection of suggested accommodations in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her surgeon’s office.

Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as eyelid surgery – but her surgeon recommended that a facial lift was the correct option for the looseness she was finding in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d touched down solo in the country, she decided to add a lip lift. “Subsequently the surgeon stated, ‘We’re going to elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately including additional procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, plus a three-day|