About the London Migraine Clinic

Everything you need to know about Dr Chris Blatchley, his London Migraine Clinic, and his research into migraines.
We'd like to take the opportunity on this page to introduce Dr Chris Blatchley as the Medical Director for our new Medical Daith for Migraine service. He has been training our piercers on how to use the Blatchley LMC Protocol to ensure that the daith piercing is positioned for the best medical effect. Extra care and training is required to ensure the correct place on the vagus nerve is pierced, as this will have the most effect, in terms of migraine relief. Although a Daith does not help everybody, his present research shows that the effect is not a placebo, as many doctors have presumed. Dr Chris's research suggests a correctly placed piercing can greatly help up to 40% of sufferers for at least a year. More research is still needed, and his aim is to show to other specialist headache doctors that they should start their own research.

Meet Dr Chris Blatchley

Dr Chris trained as a doctor at Cambridge University and St Thomas Hospital, London. He started the London Migraine Clinic 10 years ago to study the pathophysiology of migraines and offer cutting-edge migraine treatments, including Botox and Daith Piercing, as treatments for sufferers of this often debilitating condition. 

For the last 4 years, he has been working with Professor Arnold Wilkins of Essex University on the first medical research ever carried out on Daith Piercing for Migraines. He was sceptical at first, but since then every part of his research has helped confirm that there is an effect. Their future research will include using specialist brain scans to map out which parts the brain are being affected and how this helps reduce migraines. 

Neurologists have generally been sceptical that Daith has a medical effect, even though Vagus Nerve Stimulation is an accepted treatment for both migraines and epilepsy. After 4 years of hard work, Dr Chris has been presenting his research to his neurologist colleagues at medical conferences, and they are beginning to accept that the effect is not just placebo and needs further research.

The positioning of the piercing is critical, and Dr Chris has created the Blatchley LMC Protocol to assess patients and ensure that the correct position is chosen. 

Dr Chris believes that Medi-Daith for Migraine Headaches is a treatment that should be as widely available as possible through specially-trained piercers. He has been training our in-store piercers at Blue Banana since July 2020 to help start the first national Medi-Daith for Migraine Headaches service. This service is available to all, and at an affordable price.

London Migraine Clinic & Blue Banana

We're very pleased to begin to introduce the methods of the LMC within our piercing studios. With the assistance and backing of Dr Chris, a selection of our Blue Banana piercers are already beginning to offer our customers the opportunity to try out a migraine headache daith piercing for themselves. Please read our breakdown of the migraine headache  daith piercing and what will happen when you visit the studio for a daith migraine headache piercing.

We're one of the top piercers in the UK with some of the most talented piercers in the business! The ability to add another service to our piercing studios is an exciting prospect for us. Now, we can not only continue to offer the high-quality piercing service that we're renowned for, but we can also begin to offer an option for those who suffer from migraines. Pairing this with the ability to further the work of Dr Chris means smiles all around for both Blue Banana and the LMC!

For further reading and extra references, please find a list of all of the useful links below:

Featured Sections

Existing Vagus Nerve Stimulation

Medi-Daith Piercing FAQs

About the Study

About Migraines

An Introduction To Medi-Daiths

About the London Migraine Clinic

'Medi-Daith' for Migraine Headaches at Blue Banana