The Daith Piercing: has it worked?

My conclusion regarding the effectiveness of the daith piercing is long over due, it’s been pierced for nearly 2 months. During that time, I haven’t encountered any major issues, in the last week it has felt a bit sore but nothing excruciating, more of a bruised sensation. I bought a bottle of TCP to clean it and it’s been fine since.

Since we’re on the subject of cleaning, I’ll state now that it has been a truly awful piercing to clean. You cannot see where you’re putting the cotton bud, which resulted in me getting annoyed with myself and having someone else clean it for the first week. I was told to use cooled kettle water and salt to clean it, I opted to use Epsom Salts rather than normal salt. I had to use the salt water for two weeks and cooled water alone for a further two weeks.

Healing wise, it’s doing well, a week after it being pierced, I totally forgot it was there which resulted in “oh shit, I need to clean my ear” moments. The piercer told me I wouldn’t be able to sleep on it for a while, but 2 nights into it being pierced, I was sleeping on it fine. It caused no pain or discomfort and in the first week, it bled once but it hasn’t since. Cleaning aside, it has been one of the easiest and pain-free piercings I’ve had. And for those wondering, you can still use in-ear headphones with the piercing.

But, has it worked? I’m pulling an ‘erm’ face whilst writing this bit and as you read on you’ll see why. In the first 2-3 weeks, I still had headaches but oddly enough, only on the right side and nothing on the left side (it’s the left side that is pierced). However, I then suffered a bout of insomnia which snowballed me into a long flare. The flare was so prolonged from my usual flares that I asked the question of “am I even in a flare or has my lupus just got worse? Can that even happen?”. The headaches started back up on the left side during the insomnia period, but I gave the piercing a pass because the headaches were the result of exhaustion. However, after being prescribed sleeping tablets and sleeping a decent amount, the headaches didn’t disappear and I’m still suffering some degree of a headache daily.

BUT, and this is why I’m sat on the fence, since getting the piercing, I haven’t had one migraine. I usually have at least 1-2 a month that can last days but it’s been nearly 2 months without one. Sure, I’ve had bad headaches but nothing that requires me to stay horizontal for days or makes me feel like I’m looking directly at the sun when there’s a light on. But, this could just be a lovely coincidence because if it’s stopping migraines, why isn’t it stopping headaches?

My conclusion is that it might be affective if you suffer from migraines alone. But, let’s be real, I have several auto-immune diseases, a piercing was a long shot if medications weren’t working. If you were debating the piercing, I’d still try it because what doesn’t work for me, might work for you.

For the sake of £20 I gave it a go. I have a nice piercing though, so it isn’t a loss or waste of time…every cloud has it’s silver lining and all that!

The Daith piercing: it’s pierced!

I finally got around to it, better late than never! In the last week I have suffered two migraines, one of which was last night and it spurred me on to get it done today. I have the lingering remains of yesterdays migraine, which I took nothing for this morning so I could test out the ‘instant relief’ feeling a lot of people have spoke about. However, on the way to the piercer I started to wonder if this works in a subconscious way? I’m still very sceptical if this will work or not, at the end of the day, it is a controversial subject. But, for £20 it’s worth a try.

As I was filling the disclaimer form out, I was certain they were going to tell me I couldn’t have it pierced. There was a box I had to tick if I had an immune system issue and another box asking if I had taken aspirin in the last 24hrs. Of course, both answers were yes but still, they let me proceed. I asked the piercer if the pain would be like my Tragus piercing (the most painful piercing I’ve had done and I’ve got my tongue pierced!) to which she said yes. I asked that after she told me to lay down on the bed, I have never laid down for a piercing so naturally I thought “this is obviously going to be a horrific experience”. But, to my relief it was fine and she asked me to lay down because she was short and needed to be able to see properly. I heard stuff going on, and I thought it was her marking my ear or something. But, what I actually was hearing was a needle going through cartilage. Lovely.

As for the instant relief, nothing. There was no instant relief, which is making me believe this might just be a subconscious thing after all. Although, I can confirm my headache hasn’t worsened throughout the day and for that reason – I haven’t written it off just yet. I still need to see if the amount of headaches I get decreases or remains the same, I guess that’s the real test.

I mentioned in my last post about the piercing that I didn’t like how it looked and how I thought it looked oddly placed. But, now that it’s in I quite like it, so regardless of it working or not I’ll more than likely keep it in. It quite hidden, it’s not obvious that it’s there and I like that. Here is a picture of it:

The piercer told me it can take up to 18 months to fully heal, which is near enough the same time as my Tragus piercing. Although my Tragus piercing took maybe 3-4 months to heal, so I’m hoping the Daith piercing will follow suit and heal quicker than expected. I’ve had it pierced on my left ear due to my Tragus piercing being on the right and since the areas are close together I didn’t want it to look too busy. The only issue with this is, I sleep on my left side!

So overall, getting it pierced does not hurt. I felt no instant relief but I remain optimistic. And actually, after all my moaning – it’s actually quite pretty!

I will write an update post in a month or two. That way, I’ll know for sure if it’s a myth or a miracle!