No Way That Earring Actually Works, Right?

That metal loop coming out of my ear?  That's called a daith piercing, and apparently people in the world (ok, mostly on the Internet) get them to help with migraines.  I, too, have migraines--kind of--and I had tried everything else, so one day on the way home from work, when I should have been picking up eggs and milk, I stopped off at a tattoo parlor and got my ears pierced.  Again.

First, the basic mechanics.  This is a piercing that hurts.  A lot.  The very talented piercer had what appeared to be a six-inch long metal spear and a similarly-sized sheath with which to catch said spear.  After stabbing it through the cartilage of my ear.  So this spear won't, you know, go too far and stab me in the face.  He swore the procedure took only two seconds, and while I felt every millisecond, I think he was probably right.  I thought it would be a PUNCH, like when piercing your earlobe, but it turned out to be more of a PUUUUUUUUNCH, as I felt the needle-spear press into my skin and through the cartilage before coming back out into the light.  It was about this point that I began reconsidering my plan to get both ears done the same day.  Apparently most people who do this deed will get one ear done and then wait about six months before doing the other one.  I took the plunge and did them both, knowing it would be easier to stay in that chair than to come back to it.  I slept carefully on my back for a few nights and still can't use my iPhone earbuds, but the worst part was definitely over.

The bad part surprised me, which, in retrospect, is itself surprising.  Thinking logically about piercing a hole in solid cartilage should have told me it would be, at the very least, unpleasant.  Happily, though, I got surprised by the good part, too.  It never really occurred to me that the piercings might actually work.  I figured they were cheaper and cuter than another cycle of chiropractor visits or the gnarly radio-frequency oblation treatment that seared my cervical nerves with electricity and needles, so at the very least, they might make me look cool.  Or at least cooler.

So color me happily surprised when the piercings turned out to help out.  My headaches still happen, and they still totally suck, but I can tell a major difference in the pain and tension in my jaw, both during my headaches and during the ostensibly good days.  The logical part of my brain says it's a coincidence or a classic case of collection bias, but the other part of me--the part that goes to acupuncture and meditates and believes in ghosts--knows that mainstream medicine doesn't know everything.  It doesn't know, for example, how to reliably stop my headaches.  So for now I'll say that maybe it actually is the piercings, just a little bit, possibly, around the edges, and I'll thank at least a few of my lucky stars that the procedure itself and almost all of the healing is done for good.