NADINE DORRIES: How my Cotswold girls WhatsApp chat helped me to seek out the magic repair for my sagging eyes in simply 45 minutes. This is the therapy EVERYONE in center age ought to have

I have never wanted to look younger than I am. I’ve only ever wanted to look as good as I can for my age. The reasons for this may sound vain, and for that I apologise. However, at 68, I’m a rare old bird – a mature female who is not unhappy with the way I look.

I am the first to admit I’m no beauty queen or supermodel. But having been an ugly duckling as a child, teased for the size of my lips, which were abnormally large for my face, and then a very plain teenager, I’ve felt blessed and grateful in recent years for my high cheekbones (courtesy of my Irish/Liverpudlian genes) and a defined facial bone structure, which has kept sagging skin at bay.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been proactive, too.

As I’ve grown older, my priority has always been to make the best of what I have and to hold back the advancing years in as subtle a way as possible. As a result I’ve been taking precautionary steps for more than 40 years.

I began mixing sun cream in with my moisturiser back in the early 1990s, making my own form of cosmetic SPF when no other existed, and long before it became de rigueur.

I was one of the earliest users of Botox and have had my brow and the area around my eyes injected roughly every three months since 2000, which I presumed would prevent the formation of any deep wrinkles in the long term. I’m lucky, it has worked.

I’m on Christmas card terms with my facialist, whom I visit for microneedling, laser and salmon sperm facials on a regular basis.

If, like Dorian Gray, I had a portrait in the attic which had spent the past 26 years ageing naturally, without forking out for all these treatments, I’m not sure I would want to see what that version of me actually looked like.

However, despite the thousands of pounds I have spent on looking after my face – and I’m never going to tot it up because I may faint – one area I’ve neglected is my eyes.

I rarely wear sunglasses because I lose almost every pair I take outdoors. Some have stayed in my possession mere hours from the point of opening the packaging.

And given I don’t put SPF on the delicate eye area, it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart and headed south.

What surprised me was how fast it happened. It was as if overnight I grew two extra pouches on the inside corners of my eyes, which were tear-shaped, saggy and spread across the lids. The skin around my eyes drooped and hung on the outside corners of the orbital sockets. No amount of cosmetic eye-lifting creams made the slightest bit of difference.

It was when I saw myself on a BBC Question Time panel in October last year that I realised quite how bad it had got. It looked as if I was talking with my eyes half shut.

That TV appearance drew me up sharply and made me realise, despite everything I was doing to keep my face in shape, my eyes were letting me down.

I looked half asleep and, as a result, lacking in energy and vitality. It was more ageing than any number of lines or wrinkles would ever have been.

I felt dismayed because I do have a line I won’t cross when it comes to cosmetic tweakments: I won’t undergo anything that requires a general anaesthetic. This is because anaesthesia carries a risk and it’s not one I’m prepared to take, unless it’s for health reasons.

I resigned myself to the fact my eyes were going to be the undoing of all my hard work until, on one of the Cotswold ladies’ WhatsApp groups I belong to, several members struck up a conversation about the best surgeon for cosmetic eye surgery. And one recommendation came with the magic words: ‘He does it under local.’

That was enough for me. I got the surgeon’s number, made an appointment and a few weeks later, had my first consultation with Richard Caesar at his private surgery in Cheltenham.

The first thing he told me was that my eyes weren’t too bad. I felt a little deflated. He then explained how he often performed eyelid surgery – or blepharoplasty – on patients whose heavy loose skin was affecting their eyesight. This was not me.

My quest for surgery was rooted in vanity alone, but he got this right away and understood the outcome I wanted to achieve.

He told me he could improve on my tired look and the saggy skin, telling me: ‘The results won’t be dramatic, but you will look fresher, more alert and awake and, as a result, younger.

‘It will look very natural and I doubt anyone will notice what you’ve had done. They will only comment on how well you look.’

He was talking my language. This is exactly what I was looking for: a small and simple procedure with maximum impact.

He explained the operation in detail. It would take only 45 minutes under local anaesthetic and I would be home for lunch.

He said there would be bruising, the amount varying from person to person.

His lovely secretary made the booking and the date was set.

When the day arrived, I did feel slightly nervous. I was worried about the idea of having something so invasive done using only local anaesthetic.

But wasn’t this what I wanted? It was, but this was delicate surgery around my eyes, and eyes make me squeamish at the best of times. As a nurse, while working in A&E in Liverpool, I had to take a deep breath, hold firm and power through when eye patients came through the doors.

Given that many people came in with injuries from industrial settings, these could be brutal.

This was nothing like that, of course. It was controlled and minimal by comparison, and I needed to get a grip. And Richard was keen to reassure me: ‘You won’t feel me operating at all.’

A friend drove me to the appointment, we checked in and the price was confirmed: £4,800 – which for the purpose of clarity, I have paid, not the Daily Mail.

Richard, bright and breezy, came to check in with me, sign the forms and confirm what we were hoping to achieve.

‘So we’re going for natural, not cosmetic?’ he asked me again. I asked him to explain the difference. ‘Do you want to look as if you’ve been in a wind tunnel, or just look wide awake and well?’ I definitely wanted natural.

As soon as I got onto the table I began to talk gibberish about anything but my eyes – I think as a diversionary tactic.

Richard told me exactly what he was about to do as he opened up the surgical pack, covered me in a protective sterile dressing sheet and swabbed down my closed eyes with what I presume was a chlorhexidine solution to disinfect the area.

He then snapped the cuffs of his rubber gloves and the chattering stopped. The room fell silent and my stomach flipped. The moment had arrived. We were about to begin. Two nurses I could not see each gripped my hands very firmly indeed. Oh hello, I thought, what’s this about?

I soon found out as Richard inserted the first needle of local anaesthetic into my eyelid. The last time I screamed that loud was when I gave birth. One expletive after another emanated from my normally perfectly well-behaved lips.

‘You never told me about this!’ I screamed. ‘Oh yes I did,’ he said. I still maintain, he did not!

‘Ten more seconds to go. Go on, say your worst swear words, I’ve heard it all before. Let it all out.’

I did as I was told.

It felt as if it was lasting for ever, but in reality it had been two minutes maximum. My heart rate began to accelerate in response to the adrenaline in the local. Or was it just panic?

Richard, his voice now very serious, began to work his magic and the rest of the process, apart from the occasional whiff of burning flesh as he cauterised the bleeding, was plain sailing. I didn’t feel another thing.

Forty-five minutes later, I lay on a trolley in recovery with two balloons (rubber gloves tied off at the wrist) filled with crushed ice resting on my eyes. It was done.

Richard came straight out to see me and gave me antibiotic cream to put on the stitches, antibiotic tablets to take, and clear instructions: do not let the suture line dry; keep it moist with the antibiotic ointment; use ice to help prevent the swelling; sleep propped up if you can.

He told me that the next day, when I woke, the bruising and swelling would be worse, and more so the day after that.

The mornings, he warned, would be when the area looked its worst, and they absolutely were.

I woke up every day with eyes like golf balls. But as the week wore on, the swelling slowly subsided. Amazingly, I had almost zero bruising on one eye and very little over the other.

I was to see Richard back at his surgery a week later.

For those seven days I looked after myself and respected the healing process. I ate well, exercised lightly, had early nights and rested.

I have to say the stitches drove me mildly nuts after a few days, and I soon knew it if I forgot to apply the ointment. It was a blissful relief to get them taken out on the seventh day.

So how long are the effects of this procedure going to last, I asked Richard. (Yes, it’s true. I went into this process so desperate to have it done, that I had forgotten to ask that question beforehand.)

‘Ten years,’ he replied.

On my WhatsApp group there are ladies who reckon the effects last even longer if you look after your eyes. I was thrilled.

By day ten, I was wearing make-up and mascara, but there was still mild swelling when I woke for the first hour of the day.

It took more than a month to see the full results and I have to say, I’ve been amazed and delighted.

Everyone I meet greets me by telling me how well I look and that makes me very happy indeed. I feel better and happier in myself and I could not be more thrilled.

I would say to anyone in their 60s, wondering what you could or should do in terms of a cosmetic procedure, go for the upper bleph.

You really won’t regret it. It makes the hugest difference and in my opinion, gives you the best and the longest lasting bang for your buck.

Do I have any regrets? Only one. I keep asking myself, should I have gone for the full cosmetic, wind tunnel? The answer is maybe next time . . .