Doctors have warned about the dangers of trepanning after the launch of several websites promoting the "do it yourself" surgery and the case of a Gloucestershire woman who drilled a 2 cm diameter hole in her skull.
Concern has been expressed about the growing interest in trepanning for a several conditions, including depression and the chronic fatigue syndrome. Concern is also growing about the increasing promotion of trepanning, including videos, T shirts, and a virtual trepanning shopping mall on the internet.
"There are lots of good reasons for making a hole in someone's head, and in a neurosurgeon's hands it is not a risky procedure, but for someone doing it themselves the risks are huge," says Laurence Watkins, consultant neurosurgeon at the Institute of Neurology, London. Patients risk, among other things, contracting an infection or damaging the surface of the cortex.
"The reason patients end up doing it themselves is because they are being told it is not a good idea. In desperation, particularly if encouraged by one of these groups that seem to be promoting it, they have a go themselves." He says there is no evidence that there are any beneficial effects at all from trepanning, despite a range of claims.
Heather Perry, a 29 year old graduate from Gloucester, went to the United States to carry out the do it yourself surgery after contracting one of the trepanning websites run by self styled expert, Peter Halvorson. Her parents alerted the FBI, but they said they were unable to stop her.
Ms Perry, who said that she began suffering with the chronic fatigue syndrome last year, said that it was something she had wanted to do for some time: "I felt the effects immediately. I generally feel better, and there is more mental clarity."
Mr Halvorson, who runs the International Trepanation Advocacy Group and who drilled a hole in his own head in 1972, claims that the 9 mm-wide hole increased his metabolism and got rid of his depression.
Trepanning is claimed by some to be the oldest surviving surgical practice. The earliest trepanned skull found—in France—is estimated to be 7000 years old.
