I was working out this evening - nothing notably intense, the same basic workout I do 3-5 times a week (martial arts: kicks, punches, etc. Not sparring.) Suddenly - hey, my nose is bleeding.
Okay, that’s unusual. It’s happened once or twice, but always in winter, when the air’s been really dry lately. Well, it’s about 150% humidity, pouring rain, all day today. So, scratch the dry air theory. It wasn’t a big deal, grabbed some ice, some tissues, sat with my head tilted forward, and it stopped relatively soon. Then, about twenty minutes after it stopped, it started again. It’s been on and off for the past few hours.
It’s not a lot of blood or anything, not like I’m gushing from the nose. It’s a normal, non-impact-induced nosebleed, which apparently won’t stop for more then about half an hour. It dawned on me that I’ve been taking a lot of aspirin lately (hello, stress-induced headaches), and now I’m sitting here with tissues jammed up my nose, wondering why, exactly, I didn’t take ibuprofen instead. Other than the fact that there’s none in the house, and I keep forgetting to buy some.
I would sigh in dispair, but that would probably spew blood all over and dislodge any forming clots. Instead, I’ve decided to start the SDMB Campaign Against Nosebleeds. Who’s in?
Well, she is a ninja. As we all know from watching anime and ninja movies, ninjas have a lot of spare blood and will spray said blood all over the place at the slightest provocation.
Actually, I haven’t ever had a nose bleed, but my s.o. averages 2-3 (sometimes more) a week. Any time of day, even in the middle of the night, which is creepy if you’ve been watching X-files before going to bed. He just has extremely sensitive nasal tissues.
I’d check with a doctor about these things. I had similar, unexplained nosebleeds when I was a kid, and it turned out to be a treatable medical condition.
I really urge you to see a sawbones if you have freckle-looking things on your feet or shins.
[Ralph] The doctor said I wouldn’t have so many nosebleeds if I kept my finger out of there… [/Ralph]
As it happens, I used to get nosebleeds all the time, and I almost never do anymore (I’m 30). The thing I hate about my nose is that (perhaps due to accumulated nosebleed-scar-tissue) I always feel like I can’t quite get enough air through it without consciously flexing my nostrils.
You know what works really good up there? Pipe cleaners. You can get waaay back up there, to the point of coming across some booger moraines left over from your last flu snot glacier. Pull 'em out and you have even more stuff on the end than a fancy swizzle stick. Plus, they’re dishwasher safe.
As a frequent nosebleed sufferer (who travels to Denver on business frequently) I’ve learned a few things that can really help cut down on the nosebleeds:
stay hydrated
avoid aspirin (you figured this one out already)
don’t drink caffeinated beverages
avoid aspartame and other artificial sweeteners
leave the bathroom fan turned off during a shower so you can breathe in the steam
when traveling by air or to a “dry” city (low humidity, not a city with blue laws) bring tissues
Also, if you have a persistent nosebleed that keeps re-opening, I find that it helps to stand in a HOT shower and pick it open, and let it bleed out into the drain. Obviously if the sight of blood bothers you this is a bad plan, but I find that they heal up much more permanently that way.
The point isn’t to support the nose by providing it with the nasal equivilant of high-quality back-scratchers (and lieu? ew) The idea is to protest this horrid treatment! Boycott noses!
For much of my childhood, up to and including high school, I had several nosebleeds per week. Sometimes they were so serious that I’d just hold my head over the sink while an actual stream (not a drip) of blood poured out. I would soak entire hand towels with blood.
My mom knew about it but never took me to a doctor. I think it was just that I lived in a desert (Tucson) and my blood vessels were close to the surface or something. It got a bit better in my early 20s, but then I moved away from AZ and I’ve only had a couple of nosebleeds since.
Yeah, that’s the really good kind that I like to drain in the shower. Sometimes I’ll get one in the winter, and not notice it because my nose is all stuffed up and the bleeding is happening back behind the plug-O-mucus that takes up residence in my head for most of December. Then I’ll sneeze, and I can hear this noise inside my head like a water cooler “blurp”… and I know I’ve got about a second and a half to hang my head over a trash can or some really dark carpeting. Kleenex is futile.
I can’t emphasize enough that the noise comes from inside my head. And is accompanied by a mild dizziness as all the mass that was inside my sinuses shifts. It can’t change the center of mass of my head that much, but it is disorienting and a little scary. And then of course there’s the copious bleeding.
So, in conclusion:
You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.
Move away from Tuscon and Denver.
Hi Opal!
Nosebleeds suck.
A lot.
But it’s kind of cool to watch half a cup or so of your blood swirling down a drain.