Onemanda Preisinger experiences worry about her child’s upcoming 13th birthday party. Not for the typical reasons associated with a home packed of clamorous adolescent kids, but because it’s the initial occasion she will debut her recently altered face to acquaintances and relatives. “Clearly I’m going to inform all guests as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not the way I appear,’” says the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, well, a little surprising – her face puffed up and preternaturally lifted, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – look is the outcome of six cosmetic procedures, such as an minimally invasive facelift, performed by a doctor in Turkey’s Istanbul, last month. “My poor husband became emotional when he saw me for the first time because I couldn’t even unseal my eyes. That’s how swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Babe, I’m okay, I’m not in pain. I just appear as if someone jumped me.’”
Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on cosmetic specialists, Preisinger is one of a rising count of individuals electing to have a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a ten years before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Though many specialists are eager to highlight the professional guideline of: “We address heredity, not age.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties asking for facelifts,” states based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who focuses on the head and neck. “It’s a very significant procedure, and I’m a bit concerned when I observe people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Understanding the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, lifts the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we age. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what ages us; that is what becomes lax and pulls the skin downward with it.”
You endanger operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not advisable for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Once the preserve of affluent seniors, overuse of injectables – when excessive use of injectable gels expands the face and leads to looseness in the skin – combined with the common adoption of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of novel, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are driving a different type of customer towards this major operation. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey found that the portion of youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged thirty-five to fifty-five.
“People are asking now to appear as the best version of themselves and obviously the techniques are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. At present, the operation du jour is the deep plane facelift, a technique promoted by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Advanced Lifting Method
Where a conventional rhytidectomy entails lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, allowing doctors to restructure the face by repositioning the deeper tissue, and avoiding the taut, pulled appearance sometimes wrought by more traditional techniques. “We’re not putting stress on the skin because we’re going below, to the underlying structures,” says Harley Street plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who specialises in the advanced method. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The skin comes with it as a secondary element.” Elevating the whole facial structure as a single unit results in a more natural-looking and more durable result. It also means that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, 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 facial lift – at minimum not at the age of 30. But years of using injectable gels in an effort at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she entered her late 20s, she was “damaged”. “I didn’t undergo this because I desired to appear youthful,” she says. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never done it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation currently.”
Whether dermal fillers completely disappear has historically been a debated topic in the cosmetic field. “Studies have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” says Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘puffy appearance’ is also the fact that to some extent, the face becomes somewhat waterlogged because its ability to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Although research into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on injectables’ possible effects on the lymphatic system have been released, and further research announced. One highly regarded facial plastic surgeon, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says he would avoid using injectables in a patient because of the dangers they pose. “Many surgeons avoid discussing this, because the companies who produce filler can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons facing legal actions after expressing worries.
Decision and Procedure
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she believed she had to keep replenishing it – especially as it began moving to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in Florida suggested that a face and neck lift might be what she needed to finally step off the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she ended up choosing between a list of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the clinic assistant at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had scheduled an upper and lower blepharoplasty – better known as blepharoplasty – but her surgeon advised her that a facelift was the right solution for the looseness she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a mid-facelift and a neck lift. The eve of her operation, one day after she’d arrived solo in Turkey, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We’re going to lift the under-eye bags.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we remove some buccal fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She spent $22,000 (sixteen thousand five hundred pounds) for the six-hour operation, plus a three-day|
