Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her child’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical reasons associated with a home packed of loud adolescent children, but because it’s the initial occasion she will showcase her recently altered face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘Just so you know, this is not how I appear,’” says the thirty-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
Her appearance is, admittedly, a somewhat startling – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though secured by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s eager to emphasize, temporary – appearance is the outcome of half a dozen 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 indicates swollen I was,” she explains to me via online call from her home. “I needed to inform him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just look like someone attacked me.’”
Growing Trend of Youthful Facial Lifts
Based on plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of people choosing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their 20s and 30s – significantly before a ten years prior to typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of 40 to 60. (Although many specialists are eager to highlight the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not years.”) “I have individuals in their late twenties requesting facelifts,” says based in London 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 somewhat worried when I see individuals choosing it as a personal preference.”
Explaining the Rhytidectomy Surgery
A rhytidectomy, 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,” says Kent-based facial plastic surgeon Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the surface, then a layer of connective tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Think of the SMAS as the structural foundation of the face. And that is what ages us; that’s what becomes lax and drags the dermis downward with it.”
You risk operating on individuals that have deeper issues. It’s not a practice 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 looseness in the skin – alongside the widespread use of weight-loss drugs, cut-price medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed operative methods are attracting a different type 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 youthful candidates is growing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.
“People are now requesting to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the techniques are following,” comments Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique promoted by everyone from reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
While a more traditional rhytidectomy involves lifting the superficial layer, the comprehensive lift loosens the facial ligaments underneath, allowing doctors to reshape the face by moving the deeper tissue, and preventing the taut, pulled look occasionally caused by more traditional techniques. “We avoid placing tension on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the underlying structures,” explains Harley Street cosmetic doctor Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the deep plane technique. “It is the underlying layers that is adjusted. The dermis comes with it as a secondary element.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a unified block results in a authentic-appearing and more durable result. It additionally implies that the procedure is not just being used for the primary goal of youth preservation – or rejuvenation, as the cosmetic field terms it – but for “beautification” and facial restructuring, too. “We’re getting numerous requests from patients aged late twenties to mid-thirties for this reason,” says Grover.
Personal Journey
Preisinger had never planned on getting a facial lift – at least not at the thirty years old. But years of using injectable gels in an attempt at “facial balancing” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I underwent it because the injectable ruined my face. I wish I had never using it. If I had avoided the filler, I don’t think I would be in this situation right now.”
Whether injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that they seldom fully dissipate,” states Grover, “but they migrate and can obstruct lymphatic channels. One of the contributors to what we call ‘pillow face’ is additionally the reality that in a sense, the face becomes slightly fluid-filled because its ability to drain bodily fluid has been diminished.” Though research into the topic is preliminary, cautionary statements on injectables’ potential impact on the lymphatic system have been released, and additional studies announced. An esteemed face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would avoid using injectables in a client because of the dangers they present. “Many surgeons don’t want to discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce filler can be quite forceful.” He’s heard stories, he says, of cosmetic doctors being landed with court orders after expressing worries.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, once she started using injectables, she believed she had to keep adding more – particularly when it began moving to different areas of her face. She was just 28 when a nearby cosmetic doctor in the state proposed that a facial and neck surgery could be what she required to exit the cycle of treatments. After 24 months, she ended up selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, sent to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Originally, Preisinger had planned for an upper and lower blepharoplasty – commonly called eyelid surgery – but her surgeon advised her that a facial lift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a brow lift, a mid-facelift and a jawline surgery. The eve of her surgery, one day after she’d touched down alone in the country, she decided to add a mouth enhancement. “Then he said, ‘We will elevate the lower eyelid puffiness.’ Then he said, ‘I think if we extract some cheek fat, it will contour your face.’ Thus I ultimately adding two more procedures,” she says. She paid $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|
