How to Stop a Nose Bleed/Epistaxis

Nose bleeds should be a common occurrence with little consequences for the sufferer. The worst one should expect from such an episode should be a bloody nose or sheets when you wake up with no clinical significance at all.

Unfortunately in our circumstances deaths do occasionally result from epistaxis with the patient seemingly at the mercy of the bleed. They present to the doctor, ice packs to the forehead, bags nighty full and ready for the worst the doctor might disclose.

Most of these in children are due to rhinitis; infective, allergic or otherwise. The kids are usually normal and the bleed is due to repeated trauma to the upper nasal passages. The simple and very effective arrest of this is to pinch the nose as high and close to bone as possible. The duration should be at least one minute and the kid should preferably do it himself as he will bleed again and this time may be alone with only ignorant adults around. You may have to repeat the exercise for it to be effective. Failure to arrest the bleed may land you in an ambulance. Two hours being the average response time in Gauteng, you don't want to be the patient.

Adults on the other hand are more likely to have abnormality associated and it usually is hypertension, even though rhinitis is still by far the commonest cause. Bleeding is not a solution irrespective of what you heard from the herbalist. You may be both hypertensive and anemic.  This group may also have bleeding disorders as complicating factors.

The same nose pinching exercise applies here even though it will have a higher failure rate. Don’t lie supine in case you cough and possibly aspirate. Swallowed blood on the other hand is good for your health. Just make sure it is your blood though.

Prevention through vitamin C rich food to boost immunity against infections is the mainstay rule. Fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) are very important. This again re emphasizes the need for fat in your diet, fish rich in omega 3 and 6. 

The orange load we impose on you is not going to make you fat either as oranges like cucumber, lettuce, asparagus, celery and apples to mention a few are some of the negative caloric foods on our list.

Given a normal BMI, the amount of energy needed to process these foods in natural form will always be greater than the energy you derive from them. 

In simple terms they are starvation diet list.

If biochemistry and ">physiology of beauty and health are the elements of every mix, then results are assured.