Woman claims a £50 EAR PIERCING cured migraines that put her life 'on hold' for almost 4 years

For more than three and a half years, Natalie Thompson suffered a continuous headache. Coupled with regular, excruciating migraines, she said she felt as though her life was 'on hold'. Unable to work or enjoy going out with her friends, she was miserable.

However, miraculously, her migraines have now been cured by a £50 piercing of the inner ear, known as a daith piercing, she told ITV's This Morning today.

Speaking to presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, she said: 'It's been pretty bad. I've been off work, ill. I've not been able to plan anything for years,' she said. 'I had to cancel things I'd planned. I couldn't go to a Take That concert. I had to sell the ticket on.'

Then, she read about how daith piercings - earrings in the ear's inner cartilage - can help sufferers in the paper. She said: 'I just saw it in the health pages of the paper.

'There was a lady in America who got a daith piercing because she liked the look of it, but three weeks later she noticed her migraine had gone.'

Ms Thompson, of Barrow Upon Soar, Leicestershire, went to her local piercing studio and had the earring put in.

Within 10 days, her migraines had stopped and her permanent headache was less intense, she said. 'Within a week to 10 days, my headache dropped from a 7/10 down to a 3/10,' she said. 'My acupuncturist has done a lot of research and says it’s a pressure point.'

Last month, thousands of migraine and headache sufferers began sharing their experiences on social media sites, after an American doctor wrote about the phenomenon of daith piercings being used to treat migraines online.

The theory goes that 'daith' piercings relieve migraines, in a similar way to how acupuncture is used to help ease symptoms. Acupuncture, a therapy which began in China more than 2,000 years ago, involves placing fine needles at specific pressure points on the body's surface. The needles are then manipulated by a acupuncturist, either manually or electrically.

It causes the blood vessels around the needle to open up and become wider, allowing for an increase in blood flow to the tissues in the immediate area.

A report published in 2012 in the Archives of Internal Medicine analysed nearly 18,000 patients and doctors from eight universities and hospitals in the UK, US and Germany. The results showed in conditions including chronic headache, acupuncture was twice as effective as the drugs and exercise recommended by most doctors.

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