Daith piercing – Things I wish I knew before getting pierced

Let’s begin this with: I’m very happy with my Daith.
It’s a very good looking piercing, I get asked about it a lot, its already a year old and pretty much doing well (dare I say healed?).
But as much as I recommend it to anyone that has been eyeing it, or looking for something a little more unique than a helix piercing, there’s some things to take into account before getting it.
First, let’s go over the general pros and cons:

The PROs:
• It looks great
• Once healed, you have a lot of jewelry options that can make it really unique (please notice, ONCE HEALED)
• Its tucked away (Its very hard to get bumped or snagged)
• You barely even feel it in there (after the initial swelling)
• Its great for over the ear headphone wearers
• While its not something you should be doing often, especially when fresh, I personally had no issues sleeping on the side of the piercing, since my daith is really tucked away in my ear

The CONS:
• Takes a good while to heal (all cartilage takes at least a year, but this is a big chunk of it, and healing is not always as smooth)
• Hard to clean (but Ill give you some tips I found helpful)
• Its especially important to find a proper piercer, since placement and jewelry is important for a good experience
• Bad idea for in-ear headphone users
• Its very hard to take in and out yourself

The Myth
• While often counted as a pro, there’s not evidence whatsoever that daith piercings help with migraines
If you want to get a daith, get it because it’s a cool looking piercing. If there’s any surprising added benefits to that (psychosomatic or real) then great for you. But piercings are a great responsibility and require certain lifestyle changes for a long time while the piercing heals. I woudn’t recommend anyone go through that because of a baseless claim that it can heal your migraines.
• PIERCING CANNOT CURE ANY MEDICAL CONDITION AS FAR AS WE KNOW

Now that you have an idea on whether a daith piercing is something you would want or not, one thing to consider before we get into what to do and what not to do is that, even doing everything right, this piercing is prone to bumps and getting angry and crusty. Sometimes, you will just need to be patient and wait it out.
WHICH IS WHY IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT TO GET EVERYTHING ELSE RIGHT. Since you want to give your piercing the best shot at healing as smoothly as it can.

Getting pierced
If you are squeamish and the less you know about a piercing before getting it, the better, then maybe skip onto the next section. If you are like me, and like to know everything about everything in order to be prepared, be my guest.
To pierce my daith, of course the piercer first marked in my ear where it would go.
Then came the needle. It was not painful, but it was not a pleasant experience either, the most painful bit was getting the jewelry in and then get the bead of my CBR in there, which required some fiddling and pushing from my piercer.
What I was not expecting at all is how …crunchy the piercing was. That, to me, was the worst part of it all.
I still would do it again.

The first few weeks
For starters, it’s a piercing that swells up a lot. And I mean A LOT. This means that its especially important to have quality and correct size and style jewelry, otherwise you are in for a bad ride. I’ve seen lots of piercers using too small of a ring, or a curved barbell, or those heart-shaped things as starter jewelry. Then the jewelry gets swallowed up and makes everything heaps worse.
Other than that, my own experience with the first weeks of having a daith was pretty smooth sailing. I walked out of the shop feeling like I had nothing done at all, could wear my (CLEAN, over the ear headphones) from the get-go. Did not experience much pain or discomfort but my piercer had given me an action plan on what to do in case of swelling.

The jewelry
Now before we begin let’s make something really clear: Daith piercings need something shaped like a curve in there. This will mean that you might experience some of the issues usually associated with rings (bumps due to movement, bigger size and gauge needed to avoid migration, etc.), you still need a ring in there regardless.

So regarding jewelry, absolutely no: labrets, straight barbells or (I don’t believe I have to say this) plastic maternity crap (the things I’ve seen on my reddit days).

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU SHOULD GET A CURVED BARBELL AS STARTER JEWELRY
Curved barbells, while curved, can and will rotate on its axis (something a ring cannot do inside a daith piercing), they are also very likely to get swallowed up on the first few weeks of healing. So don’t do it, and if a piercer offers, go get pierced somewhere else.

Now, there’s things you can wear on a healed daith, but shouldn’t wear on a healing daith:
Namely, clickers, seamless rings, those heart-shaped rings, and pretty much anything that’s not a smooth curved surface all the way through.
Seams from seamless rings and clickers can and will get inside the healing fistula and wreak havoc. Same with those heart-shaped rings, in no time the pointy part could end up inside your fistula. These are all really pretty, but you need to be patient and only switch to those once you are 100% sure the piercing is healed (maybe wait a year and then some, for caution).

The ideal jewelry for a daith is a CBR (captive-bead-ring) or a horseshoe, but please, pick a high quality one that’s smooth all along the ring (there’s enough of those rings that twist, or have textures in them). Also make sure that your piercing is picking a piece that’s big enough for starter jewelry.

The aftercare
Standard aftercare applies here (saline spray marketed for wound wash twice a day and clean in the shower). But the thing with daiths is they are really hard to clean.
Back when I got mine done, I kept finding filth and crusties in places of my ear I didn’t know existed. To clean in the shower, I would have to cover the hole of my ear with a finger (so as not to get water inside of it) and then bend my head so that the water could get in the bowl of my ear.
That alone was not enough, and I kept finding dirt in places, or even getting hurt because crusties would get into the fistula.
So, I had to use internet’s biggest piercing fear: a (gasp) q-tip. Sometimes the irritation from a q-tip is less than the damage of a dirty piercing (and the irritation caused by crusties that will not fall off on their own).
To minimize movement from the q-tip I would make sure to do this after the shower. With a clean hand, I’d hold the bead of my CBR down on the bowl of my ear (keeping the whole ring in place), then Id clean gently along the ring.
With a clean side, I would also need to get the spots under my forward helix and under the spot a rook would go. Once the piercing was more healed and could be moved a bit, I would also clean the bowl of my ear.

The issues
For the most part, my daith was an easy piercing.
I did have some trouble with how itchy mine got when healing (something totally normal).
I also did get some bumps, but they went down with patience.

REMINDER: For now, I’m using this magazine to gather some nice resources that helped me as a pierceé, to research and advocate for myself and get quality piercings done by proper professionals. IM NOT A PIERCER, but I did take my time to research and ask piercers on different issues.
If you are a piercer migrating from reddit (or just came upon this page) and want to take over this space, you are more than welcome, you probably know more than me!