Skull Drilling for Migraine: So, was it a “thing”, or not?
I recently read with interest an article at The Conversation (later published at Smithsonian.com as well) regarding the ancient art – practice – of trepanation (or trephination). That is, drilling or scraping a hole through the skull. The article was entitled Drilling holes in the skull was never a migraine cure – here’s why it was long thought to be, written by migraine historian Katherine Foxhall.
It looks like trepanation has been around almost as long as humanity has. But the question why? is not always easy to answer.
In fact, the article didn’t offer proof that skull drilling was never used for migraine. It couldn’t, because we don’t always know what it was used for. Many societies never left records for us of the procedure – they simply left … well, skulls with holes in them.
But if a more modern era is any indication, trepanning was indeed done for headache – and hence probably for migraine.
Now, as Foxhall rightly points out, trepanning was used for many other things as well. Epilepsy and head trauma seem to be common examples. But again, for most cases we really don’t know what the purpose was.
In the book Trepanation: History, Discovery, Theory, edited by Robert Arnott, Stanley Finger and Chris Smith, the authors do indeed give examples of trepanation for severe headache.
In the PNG Medical Journal, D.A. Watters published some interesting information on trepanning in Papua New Guinea. The procedure was investigated by Europeans such as explorer and anthropologist Richard Parkinson. Even in the 1800s, trepanation was being used for trauma and – you guessed it, severe headache.
As a fascinating side note, many of these so-called primitive examples of trepanation were apparently quite “successful” – in the sense that the patient lived a long life afterwards. D.A. Waters says that most patients survived, in contrast to London in the 1870s, where most trepanned patients died.
The procedure was used in some parts of the world until quite recently – and may be practised today more than we realize.
So although historic trepanation is mostly shrouded in mystery, it almost certainly has been used to treat migraine.
And yes, doctors still drill holes in the skull today, often due to pressure on the brain as a result of trauma.
In other words – some ancient doctors may have been using a very modern treatment in a very modern way.
But some may just have wanted to “let the evil spirits out” (why bone would hinder a spirit, I’m not sure).
Be that as it may, chances are that a hole in your skull will only make things worse for you. So please, keep your head in tact, and talk to your neurologist about your next migraine treatment.