A woman who suffered from debilitating migraines for nine years says her symptoms are gone after paying for “risky” surgery.

Neurologists told Anna Hill, 41, that there was no explanation for her condition, after she once suffered from migraines for 94 days. She became so desperate that she crowdfunded an operation that removed a benign brain cyst.

This treatment is considered “irresponsible” by most surgeons, but a new NHS clinical trial found that nine out of 10 patients are “better” after having it.

“I’m working again, I’m exercising, I’m socializing, things I haven’t been able to do before,” Ms Hill said.

Ms Hill, from Hotwells, Bristol, first developed symptoms as a teenager, which included migraines, nausea, vertigo, tinnitus and brain fog, which meant she was unable to hold down a job.

• Listen to the full story on the File On 4 podcast

“I spent most of my time in bed trying to get relief from my headaches,” he told the BBC in 2018, just before traveling to Germany for the operation.

He said that the most anxiety attacks made him feel as if he had “lost himself”.

Ms Hill eventually had a brain scan, which revealed a small benign growth.

She then joined a pineal cyst support group, consisting primarily of young women who believed such cysts were responsible for debilitating symptoms.

Ms Hill resorted to raising £36,000 in 2018 to travel to Germany for treatment from neurosurgeon Professor Henry Schroeder of Greifswald University Hospital.

In 2018, Professor Schroeder claimed to have performed 48 operations with a 94% success rate.

Professor Alistair Jenkins, of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, believes the operations are “irresponsible”.

He said: “There are about 40,000 neurosurgeons in the world, the fact that only six are willing to do it I think says more about the procedure rather than the ability of those neurosurgeons.”

He cautioned that pineal cysts should only be removed in extremely rare circumstances, and believed that the successful results of the operation could be explained by a “placebo effect”.

After a long recovery, Ms Hill said her life is now back to normal.

“I think my worst was I had migraines for 94 days, and nothing could touch me, no painkillers, not even really strong ones.

“Before you interviewed me, I was in bed 24 hours a day.”

Now, he is able to work, exercise three times a week, and socialize with friends.

Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge has completed a clinical trial on 40 pineal cyst patients to try to answer the question whether this operation is causing real or placebo improvement.

Led by neurosurgeon Professor Thomas Santerius, the study evaluated patients by various specialists and documented their symptoms before and for three years after the operation.

Professor Santarius said: “The study shows that the treatment is effective and safe.

“About 90% of patients improve within a year after surgery, and this benefit continues until the latest follow-up, which is an average of three years.”

Professor Richard Nelson, a former neurosurgeon who led the development at the Institute of Clinical Neurosciences in Bristol, said the “placebo effect” rarely accounts for 90% of the results.

“It would be stretching things to say that you’ll reach a placebo effect of 90% and I think that suggests there must be some mechanism for improvement, certainly in selected patients,” he said.

Bristol solicitor Cara Williams, 36, had the surgery in 2019.

She said, “A few days after the operation, both my mother and husband said that by looking into my eyes I saw myself again and that is how I felt.

“I felt like this huge pressure had been lifted from my mind.

“I’ve got my life back and without that surgery I wouldn’t have been able to do everything I’ve done in recent years.”

Professor Santerius has already presented his findings at an international conference and hopes to put them up for publication soon.

Recent revelations of celebrity Davina McCall a colloid cyst Her brain was detected during a routine checkup and the focus was on how such scans can detect small abnormalities.

But Professor Jenkins warned that although it is tempting to attribute any symptoms such as headaches and dizziness to this, this is not always the case.

He said: “Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – medicine doesn’t work that way.

“Some of these abnormalities are quite common, but rarely cause any problems.

“To make a connection with the scan findings, and to propose surgery, there must be a plausible mechanism for causing the symptoms and a reasonable expectation that the symptoms will be resolved by surgery.

“And surgery, of course, is not without risks. For any surgery, the risk of the operation must be less than the risk of not operating.”

Pineal cyst symptoms may occur if the cyst grows large enough to obstruct the passage of cerebrospinal fluid — the fluid constantly produced by the brain that bathes and supports it, he said.

“In this case, the pressure inside the head can increase, causing headaches and sometimes more serious problems.

“By and large surgeons will not offer the surgery if it is not.

“But in the case of pineal gland cysts, there is a large amount of information on the Web that prompts patients to seek surgery for minor and often unrelated symptoms.

He added, “Few surgeons are willing to offer the operation and this is where the controversy begins, as surgery for these deep-seated cysts is not without significant risks.”

There are no current plans to offer the surgery to NHS patients.

Follow BBC Bristol Facebook, x And InstagramSend your story ideas to us by email or via WhatsApp 0800 313 4630,