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

Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the usual causes associated with a house full of loud preteen children, but because it’s the first time she will debut her recently altered face to friends and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they arrive, ‘For your information, this is not how I look,’” states the thirty-year-old property agent from Southern Florida.

How she looks is, admittedly, a little surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, short-term – appearance is the outcome of six aesthetic surgeries, including an minimally invasive facelift, conducted by a doctor in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. “My spouse became emotional when he viewed me for the initial time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her home. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just look like someone attacked me.’”

Increasing Popularity of Early Facelifts

According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals choosing to have a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ usual candidate age of 40 to 60. (Though most surgeons are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” states London-based aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe individuals opting for it as a personal preference.”

Understanding the Facelift Procedure

A rhytidectomy, alternatively called a rhytidectomy, elevates the ligaments in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like onion layers,” says based in Kent facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Dermis and adipose on the top, then a layer of supportive tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the facial framework as the soft tissue skeleton of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”

You endanger operating on people that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an ethical plastic surgeon to pursue

Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of injectable gels stretches the face and causes looseness in the skin – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are driving a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports indicate an 8% increase in facelifts over the last year in the UK; while a study revealed that the portion of younger facelift patients is growing, with one-third of procedures now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.

“Patients are asking now to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are following,” comments Orfaniotis. At present, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to style creator Marc Jacobs.

Advanced Lifting Method

Where a more traditional facelift involves elevating the SMAS, the deep plane facelift releases the facial ligaments underneath, enabling doctors to restructure the face by moving the deeper tissue, and avoiding the tight, stretched look occasionally caused by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin follows along as a secondary element.” Lifting the whole facial structure as a single unit allows for a more natural-looking and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the procedure is no longer being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field describes it – but for “enhancement” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from clients aged 28 to 35 for this purpose,” notes Grover.

Individual Experience

Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But long-term using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” implied that by the time she reached her late twenties, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever using it. If I didn’t have the filler, I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now.”

If dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the aesthetics industry. “Research have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face becomes slightly waterlogged because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been diminished.” Although research into the area is early-stage, warnings on dermal fillers’ potential impact on the body’s drainage have been issued, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the risks they pose. “A lot of doctors don’t want to talk about this, because the companies who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s been told accounts, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.

Decision and Procedure

For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she needed to continue adding more – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a local plastic surgeon in Florida proposed that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the injectable hamster wheel. After 24 months, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in Istanbul, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.

Originally, Preisinger had planned for an eyelid surgery – better known as eyelid surgery – but her doctor advised her that a facial lift was the right solution for the laxity she was finding in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The day before her operation, 24 hours post she’d arrived solo in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We will elevate the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I believe if we extract some cheek fat, it will sculpt your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|