At 46, Gail Hyde was hit by a barrage of perimenopause symptoms. The restless legs, aching joints and fatigue were wearing – but most debilitating were her migraines.
These had become so crippling after six months that she eventually decided to give up her job in retail.
She tried all the usual medications and, while they would ‘take the edge off’, the migraines still came fortnightly, sometimes more frequently, forcing her to retreat to bed for at least three days each time.
Becoming increasingly desperate, she began researching other ways to manage migraine pain. This was when she came across ‘daith piercing’.
The daith is the small fold of cartilage at the front of the ear, directly above the ear canal.
Daith piercing – inserting an earring into this area – is said to stimulate the vagus nerve, the main nerve that runs from the brain down to the gut.
It plays a role in regulating pain, inflammation and stress throughout the body. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is an established therapy for various conditions, including depression, epilepsy and cluster headaches, and is available on the NHS for these.
It’s also sometimes used to treat migraines – although not on the NHS.
It’s thought that targeting the nerve can calm an overactive nervous system and modify pain and other signals.
Gail Hyde tried all the usual medications and, while they would ‘take the edge off’, the migraines still came fortnightly (picture posed by model)
Sitting above the ear canal, the daith is the small fold of cartilage at the front of the ear directly above the ear canal. Daith piercing – inserting an earring into this area – is said to stimulate the vagus nerve, the main nerve that runs from the brain down to the gut
The nerve is normally stimulated by a non-invasive electrical device attached to the ear or worn around the neck, which delivers mild electrical pulses.
However, the idea of stimulating the nerve on an ongoing basis through a one-off piercing is more controversial. Indeed, there is no clinical evidence proving the ‘treatment’ – which costs between £100 and £145 – is effective. Nonetheless, based on her experience, Gail is convinced it works – she says the relief was instant after getting her ‘medi-daith’ (medical daith piercing) in 2023, three years after her migraines started.
‘It was very emotional,’ she says, ‘like a weight had been lifted off me’.
In the year that followed her piercing, Gail had just three migraines, all milder.
She’s experienced a gradual increase in frequency since then – and now has around a migraine a month. But she says these are far more manageable and only last a day.
‘They’re nothing like before,’ she says. ‘Nowadays, if I feel a migraine coming on, I can just take ibuprofen and lysine [a supplement thought to help process and inhibit pain].’
Gail was treated by Dr Chris Blatchley, a physician and founder of the London Migraine Clinic. He first became interested in daith piercing in 2015 after body art fans reported on social media their surprise that their piercing – a trend that took off in the 1990s as a fashion statement – had eased their migraine pain.
Dr Blatchley was, he says, initially sceptical.
However, after asking people who’d used medi-daith to contact him via his website, he became convinced. Since 2018 he’s surveyed 5,000 people who’ve had the treatment and found that around 80 per cent felt their medi-daith helped (while 20 per cent experienced no benefit).
Gail Hyde was treated by Dr Chris Blatchley (pictured), a physician and founder of the London Migraine Clinic
Half of those who benefited said the effects wore off after a few weeks or months, while the other half experienced a positive effect for many months. Gail’s results were exceptional in that they lasted three years – although that effect is now diminishing, too.
As Dr Blatchley acknowledges, using responses from people who’ve volunteered to take part can be flawed, though he hopes to produce better quality research data in future trials by using an MEG (magnetoencephalography) brain scanner. This measures electrical activity in particular parts of the brain.
One of the world’s leading experts on migraine and cluster headache pain, Professor Peter Goadsby, a neurologist and director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research at King’s Clinical Research Facility in London, says it’s plausible daith piercing could stimulate the vagus nerve and so offer temporary migraine relief.
‘But it’s difficult to understand how it would go on helping – as the nervous system starts to accommodate the pain of the piercing, the stimulation effect would fade,’ he adds. ‘So it would be surprising if a piercing that doesn’t cause ongoing pain has an ongoing effect.’
By contrast, he points to recent important drug developments that have significantly improved migraine treatment – in particular, gepants. These are a class of drug that block a protein central to triggering migraines, and ‘are the most exciting [migraine] medicines because of their potential for widespread change’, says Professor Goadsby.
He also highlights PACAP (pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide – a neuropeptide involved in migraines) medicines as an emerging area to watch.
And he warns about the risk of infection that comes with daith piercings – he even once saw a patient who had to have part of their ear removed when it became badly infected after the daith was pierced abroad by someone with no specialist training.
Dr Blatchley admits there’s a risk of serious infection.
As the daith is cartilage, it lacks a blood supply – meaning that should it get infected, it’s harder to treat than more conventional piercings involving soft tissue.
But he believes infection can be prevented by using high-strength saline spray.
Daith piercings can also require a longer healing period – taking up to two years to fully repair.
This lengthy healing, he argues, is potentially what irritates or stimulates the vagus nerve and may explain the longer-term anti-migraine effect experienced by some people.
So does this mean that, when the area is fully healed, the ‘treatment’ stops working?
‘For some people,’ Dr Blatchley says, ‘that’s true’.
He adds: ‘They may need a re-piercing or have to get the other ear done. But some find that if they fiddle with their [healed piercing] when they feel a migraine coming on, then it doesn’t develop.’
It’s also important to accurately locate the correct site to pierce, as the area of the ear supplied by vagus nerve endings is tiny.
Dr Blatchley has now teamed up with a body-piercing company, Blue Banana, which has studios across England and Wales and uses an electrical point locator to identify the precise spot for medi-daith piercings.
He warns it’s crucial to get the piercing done by a specialist rather than a regular piercing studio.
He adds that getting both ears pierced is more effective than one – which is what Gail had done.
It didn’t hurt any more than standard piercings, she says, but there was a downside – as sleeping on your side is more uncomfortable with daith piercings.
She says: ‘When you get one ear done, you can sleep on the other side. When you get both done, it’s difficult. But there’s no way I’d take them out.’
She also finds earphone buds uncomfortable as the ear canal is partially obstructed by the earring. She adds: ‘I’m not the sort of person to get tattoos and I wouldn’t get my daith pierced for fashion reasons, but I don’t mind the way it looks. Most people don’t even notice it.’
She’s now enjoying a career as a nail technician and says she’d consider new daith piercings when the effects of her current ones completely wear off.
But without robust evidence about the effectiveness of daith piercings, for now the jury is out.
