‘My Eyes Were So Swollen I Couldn’t Even Open Them’

Amanda Preisinger is nervous about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the usual reasons associated with a home packed of loud preteen children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her recently altered face to friends and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I look,’” says the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

Her appearance is, well, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by industrial-grade tape. Her altered – and she’s keen to stress, short-term – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen aesthetic surgeries, such as an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Istanbul, Turkey, the previous month. “My poor husband 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 tells me via video call from her house. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”

Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts

According to cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We treat genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facial lifts,” states 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 bit concerned when I see people opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery

A facelift, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, lifts the ligaments in the face that start to sag as we age. “Human faces are built a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a stratum of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what becomes lax and drags the skin down with it.”

You endanger performing surgery on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of affluent seniors, “filler fatigue” – when excessive use of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the skin – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, low-cost surgical travel, and the development of new, famous-figure-promoted operative methods are driving a new kind of customer towards this major operation. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the UK; while a study revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for individuals aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“People are now requesting to look like the best version of themselves and obviously the methods are following,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the operation du jour is the comprehensive facial lift, a method promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

While a conventional rhytidectomy involves elevating the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift releases the facial ligaments underneath, allowing surgeons to restructure the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the tight, stretched look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” says Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The dermis follows along as a passenger.” Elevating the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block allows for a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It also means that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive many inquiries from clients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.

Personal Journey

Preisinger had not intended on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of 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 undergo this because I wanted to look young,” she says. “I underwent it because the filler harmed 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 ever fully dissolve has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been issued, and additional studies initiated. An esteemed facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using fillers in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the manufacturers who make filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he adds, of plastic surgeons facing court orders after raising their concerns.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to other parts of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state suggested that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she found herself selecting from a list of suggested accommodations in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.

Initially, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as 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 brow lift, a cheek lift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we remove some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she says. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the six-hour operation, including a three-day|