When you are a chronic migraine patient, or any headache disorder patient for that matter, people offer you well meaning advice. Most of the time it’s something like “have you tried Excedrin Migraine?” or something pedestrian, but sometimes it’s “try rubbing a banana on your head!” Then you are left staring at the person thinking “woah, they just said that out loud and they were serious and I have to figure out whether to laugh hysterically or be angry. Maybe I should just walk away.”
The most recent of these well meaning suggestions is the daith piercing. Everyone is getting this piece of cartilage inside their ears pierced hoping that it will make the pain stop. I get it, we will do almost anything to make it stop. If I really believed that rubbing a banana on my head would cure me, I’d probably do it, and I’m actually pretty deathly allergic to bananas, but it would be worth the epipen shot and trip to the ER. That’s pretty much how desperate we are for relief from this.
But I’m pretty confident that rubbing a banana on my head will not fix me any better than a hole in my cartilage. Why? Because it seems preposterous that either of those things could fix a neurological disease! There’s no science behind it. We don’t know a lot about migraine disease. We have our theories as to what is happening and why the medications and treatments we use work. Those theories and hypotheses are based in real biology and science though.
Daith is based on “try it, what have you got to lose except $40-$60?” Words of a true snake oil salesman. There’s no science behind it. Even all the best acupuncturists believe there is no basis for it to be used. And they all think that even if it did help it would only be at first and after that it would destroy the pressure point all together. They say why not try putting pressure there first and see if that helps and then consider it with a professional, not a person who does piercings.
Other than the loss of money though, what is the harm?
Well, it could make things worse. There’s reports of people who get the piercing and it makes their disease worse due to aggravation. There’s risk of infection especially there. But these are not my biggest concern.
We live in a world of research and medicine that is increasingly patient driven. Patients are going into doctor’s offices asking for what they want rather than being told what they need. They want a sense of control over their situation and want treatments tailored to what they believe they need. Unfortunately I think this can lead to wasted money on research. People are still spending money researching whether acupuncture is effective in treatment of migraine despite the weak science around that and the fact that previous studies have only barely shown it to be useful. I guess they want it to be a grand slam of effectiveness, but what if it just isn’t? Or what if it is only effective for a very small portion of people? How much money should really be thrown into that?
As far as I am aware there have already been two studies on daith piercing and its effectiveness. This means that someone spent time and money on this idea that some piercer thought up to make an extra buck. How else could we have used that money more effectively to actually find new and better treatments for migraine and all pain? If we keep wasting money on things like this, real solutions will be even further off.
That’s my opinion anyway, and I’m positive it’s going to be an unpopular one. I think, considering the small amount of money we get compared to burden of disease, that we as a community should want to spend that money in the wisest and most effective ways possible, instead of studying the lastest fad diet or piercing or banana on the head craze.
Light in the Dark 