Sometimes children and adults are faced with a nosebleed. Usually nosebleeds aren’t dangerous for one’s health. However, sometimes one has a nosebleed for no reason. Why does this happen and how can you stop the bleeding?
Main Causes of a Nosebleed
A nose is an important sense organ, which allows them to smell all the aromas, and it helps to fight any infection we get.
Our nose has many nerve endings and blood vessels to be placed in and around nasal septum, right under epithelium layer. Due to such position and thin vessel wall people may suffer from a nosebleed because of vascular disruption. The main cause of such bleeding are divided into two major groups:
- local processes, connected with the nose zone;
- general processes of the whole body.
Local Causes of a Nosebleed
Local processes of the nosebleed are nose and its mucous injury, traumas of a face and nose fracture.
Little babies suffer from mucous membrane trauma because of putting in their nose some details of toys or they can injure it with a nail or some sharp object.
Other reasons are inflammatory processes in and around the nose and its sinus, acute rhinitis, sinusitis and antritis, which leads to crusts development and mucous injury as a result. In case of some nose inflammation, such as allergy, a blood intake occurs and vessels can’t stand the pressure.
Nasal septum deviation or mucous membrane atrophy traumatize vessels and provoke the bleeding.
Body Disease and Nosebleed
However, nosebleeds also happen under serious body diseases, such as heart and vessels diseases, hypertonia, atherosclerotic vessels involvement of a brain and circulatory cervical disturbance. Therefore, a pressure inside nasal capillaries goes up and they break.
The nosebleed also happens in case of thermal effect in the sun, fever, infectious diseases, pressure change in alpinists, divers, hormone debalance, and pregnancy.
In any case, it’s necessary to be able to provide first aid and consult with a specialist.
First Aid For a Nosebleed
In the case of a nosebleed, we used to throw our head back, and then press handkerchief or napkin to the nose.
Unfortunately, doctors claim that it’s forbidden to throw back one’s head in case of such problem.
These actions may lead to blood swallowing and inhalation, vomiting, bronchus obstruction, especially if you have an acute nosebleed. One should sit down and bow the head forward to let the blood bleed from the wings of the nose.
Also, you need to calm down and provide access for air. Unfasten the belt, shirt collar or brassiere. If you faced with the bleeding at home, apply frozen meet to the bridge of the nose or an ice cube. Such actions help to narrow vessels and stop the bleeding in a short space of time.
If you can’t stop the nosebleed, press the nostril to the nasal septum for 10 minutes. Vessels squeeze and blood flow slowing down lead to a thrombus formation and form a thrombus to plug the vessel.
In case these measures aren’t useful, try vasoconstrictive drops which are normally prescribed in case of rhinitis – Naphthyzinum, Sanorimim. Damp a cotton tampon in this medicine and put it in the nasal cavity as deeper as possible. Also, use vegetable oil or Vaseline for the nasal cavity in order to soften crusts and stop the bleeding.
In case the reason of the nosebleed is overheat, then take such person away from the sun and apply a cool compress to the nose. In case of a heat stroke, call an ambulance as soon as possible.
When Medical Assistance is Required?
In case the nosebleed is a symptom of some serious disease, one should apply to a doctor!
The most obvious reasons to seek assistance:
- nose fracture, nosebleed and acute deformation of a nasal bone, edema and pain;
- the nosebleed because of aspirin, geparin and other preparations intake, especially if they are hormonal drugs;
- the nosebleed because of headache, blackout or giddiness. Measure your blood pressure, lie or sit down if you are not at home.
It’s advisable to call an ambulance if you can’t stop the bleeding within 15 minutes and it’s attended by paleness and extremity coldness, loss of consciousness due to some head trauma.
In such cases, one should visit a doctor and undergo required tests, especially, if the bleeding occurs repeatedly with the following bruise development or gingival hemorrhage. A person (both adults and youth) should also be examined by the ENT doctor, as far as there could be a foreign body in their noses to provoke the bleeding. In addition, a doctor is a professional who can easily remove any object from one’s nose and stop the bleeding.
General body examination is required if the bleeding is a frequent phenomenon. Probably, you will need to do some additional tests for hormones, ECG, ultrasound investigation of the heart. However, normally, such bleeding has obvious reasons, which can be easily liquidated.
