The Health Reporter Is In: Dec. 2, 2015

Have a health-related question? Submit it here and veteran reporter Deb Pressey will chase down an answer.

This week …

Q: Is there any truth to all the claims that a daith piercing will help with migraine headaches?

A: The daith piercing goes through the cartilage fold located just above the ear canal, and the popular claim is that this piercing works like acupuncture on a pressure point to relieve migraines.

In acupuncture, thin needles are inserted to stimulate strategic points on the body. According to the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, this needling stimulates the nervous system to release chemicals in the muscles, spinal cord and brain, and these chemicals will either change the experience of pain or it will trigger the release of other chemicals and hormones to influence the body’s own internal regulating system.

Migraine attacks can last from hours to days, and can cause such intense, throbbing pain — and for some migraine sufferers, also nausea, vomiting, dizziness and extreme sensitivity to light, sound and touch — they’re one of the common reasons people go to emergency rooms.

If you want a daith piercing for the way it will look anyway, that’s one thing. If you don’t necessarily hanker to wear an earring in this part of your ear, keep in mind this particular piercing through cartilage is fairly painful, carries a risk of infection and there’s no evidence it will do anything for your migraines, according to Dr. Barry Jay Riskin, a neurologist at Christie Clinic.

Riskin said he read extensively about what’s been posted online about daith piercing for migraine, and it all largely harks back to the same article, “which has no medical data whatsoever, none.”

“I can’t say don’t pierce your daith because it looks bad. That’s not for me to say,” he said. “But if someone was to say pierce your daith because it’s going to help your migraine, that’s a claim that can’t be supported by any medical evidence at all.”

Riskin also said scientific evidence doesn’t support the use of acupuncture for migraines, though that’s not to say acupuncture isn’t helpful for some people. Not only that, he said, the daith piercing “isn’t the same as acupuncture. It’s a completely unproven claim.”

Matt Stines, owner of No Regrets Tattoos & Body Piercing, Champaign, supports trying the daith piercing for migraines based on customer feedback, he said.

He knows two women who have had this piercing done for migraines who said “it knocks them down to about nothing,” he said.

“I know there’s no real scientific study,” Stines said. “I guess you would say it’s like holistic medicine. It may very well be a placebo thing.”

He doesn’t discourage anyone from seeing doctors, Stines said, but if medications aren’t working for migraines, he thinks people might need to try something else.

Stump Cogdill, the owner at 217 Tattoo Co., Champaign, said a man came into his shop to get daith piercings in both ears for migraines, but the piercer at that shop didn’t believe it would stop his migraines.

“It’s like one of those home remedies,” Cogdill said.

The Health Reporter Is In: Dec. 2, 2015