Nose bleeds

Hi cuddlybarb,

I'm not 100% sure if this symptom ( nose bleed) could be endometriosis related but I also experienced this a few years ago when I had the implanon implant fitted in my arm, - my initial guess is the fact that the blood that we would of been usually losing vaginally has gotten trapped & needs some sort of outlet & therefore chooses our nose.

I'm sure in my case about 6 months after having the implant fitted my nose bleeds stopped.

x

No you wouldn't have any extra blood that needs somewhere else to escape from.

Your body doesn't work like that at all.

Your body has a pretty stable amount of blood pumping round it.

If by chance you have an bleeding injury from a wound, or a surgery or a heavy period and you are losing blood then that is when your bone marrow kicks in to starts to replace what is missing.

Rather than predicting you will have a bleed and creating more just in case before hand.

If our bodies did predict a wound - the pressure from a huge build up of extra blood would kill us. Our blood pressure would be bursting any weak points all over the body ...and that is known to happen when a body is subjected to high pressure shocks, like bomb explosions, or flying to high too fast, we start to bleed from ears,eyes and noses and goodness knows where else.

This is why fighter pilots wear high pressure flying suits which inflate rapidly to squash your body in all the right places to prevent damage causes by rapid increase in pressure inside the body.

Your body doesn't expect you to bleed or have a paeriod, it expects you to get pregnant.

When you dont the old menstrual lining in the uterus and on the endo cells everywhere else sheds away.

This process leaves behind tiny wounds that will then bleed until they can clot.

It can clot very quickly in a healthy woman nd she is still losing the same amount of menstrual lining as an endo lady - but her period will appear to be lighter because the wounds left behind clot so soon after they are opened when the menstrual lining sheds away.

The heavier your bleeding during a period the less you have of blood clotting factors available in your blood to heal up those tiny wounds as quickly as they need to clot, so there are more of them bleeding at any one time. This means there is greter blood loss - and hence you hve a heavier period flow.

That accounts for the blood flow, Your heart is still pumping blood round the body at the same rate as it always does, just there are more un-clotted wounds for it to escape from.

If during your period - a time of high demand for clotting factors, you happen to blow your nose and burst a tiny cailliary inside the nose, this will take longer to clot too and the bleeding will be more noticeble too than between periods when you do have enough clotting factors to heal up ny tiny wounds much faster.

Ordinarily it would clot very quickly - it may clot so fast you barely notice a nose bleed, but if there is not enough of the elements needed to clot so quickly then it is going to have a much longer time to bleed and you will notice this.

If you are on the DVT drugs like Heparin or Clexane this thins the blood and prevents your body building up clotting factors....

If you are a haemophilliadc (mostly affects males) - an inherited disease where your body does not actually produce any of certain clotting factors....

Then any bruise, any cut or popped zit, or nose bleed or menstrual period, they will gush and gush and gush because of the lack of enough clotting factors in the blood stream to scab over the wounds and stop the flood.

If you loose too much blood your blood pressure will drop rapidly

e.g. after a nasty accident or delivering a baby and haemorrhaging too much blood. This can be life threatening and is when you would require a transfusion of donated blood.

Haemophilliacs used to rely on frequent blood donations of blood containing their missing clotting factors, to top them up. These are now replaced with artificial clotting factors as the blood donations some 25 years ago were often contaminted leading to many Haemophilliacs contracting HIV from donated blood.

With endo - the demand on our clotting factors is very high, the more extensive our endo is. Which is why we tend to have longer lasting and heavier periods - there just isn't sufficient clotting factors available for our bodies to cope. So we are given drugs like tranexamic acid for few days to boost the production of clotting fctors, but can only tke them for 4 days max, as we don't wan't too much of the clotters s that can lead to clots within the veins.... DVT Deep vein thrombosis.

Hope that helps explain how the period bleeding system kind of works.

Hi Barbara,

I don't get nosebleeds but I remember that my gums get swollen and bleed (during teeth brushing)when I have a period so maybe there is a connection somehow.......Strangely, when I don't have periods (while I was on Zoladex and Depo-Provera); no bleeding gums! x

Same answer to you Bokkie - bleeding can only stop if there is enough clotting fctors in the blood to cope with the demand at any one given time. Regardless of where in the body the demand may be.

If you are on Zoladex - it has shut down all of the uterus and all the endo patches from shedding their linings and then leaving behind little wounds that bleed. So demand is very low on the blood for the clotting factors.

So any minor injury anywhere in the body will be able to have plenty enough clotting factor from the blood to heal up very quicky as it is supposed to do.

Hi Cuddlybarb

I have heard this from quite a few people who have endo. Have you googled it there are lots of other posts on various forums with answers x

Oh yes Barb I am not dismissing endo in the nasal passages - but I am explaining that any bleed from the nose when your body is making heavy demands on clotting factors ie when you are on a period will result in a longer nose bleed till if can clot and scab up.

Some people are naturally more prone to nose bleeds anyway.

My sister and her eldest daughter (neither have endo to my knowledge) - are notorious for their nose bleeds. Anytime anywhere - and usually when they have their best outfits on and we are heading out somewhere nice. Always at the most inconvenient moments for them.

An old friend of mine (male) is another who ends up at A&E with alarming regularity with out of control nose bleeds.

Because it is so common in the population and among people who don't have endo,

and it is so easy for endo in the nose to be identified by an ENT doc using a scope,

and endo in the nose is so very rare, it is much more likely that the fragile nasal tissue is just in a weaker state to heal and clot during period.

If you genuinely feel there might be endo up the nose - have word with your GP in the first instance. They can refer you to ENT specialists for further investigation. It would be so easier to look for and spot endo in the nose and sinuses that just about anywhere else. As of 2001 there had only been 1 reported case of nasal endo. There is another reported in 2011. It cannot be ruled in or out by me, but it is VERY uncommon.

Definitely endo related.It can be in the nose.I am exactly the same and even get it monthly even while I am on Depo Provera( no periods).Like lots of tiny scabs with clots of blood?Does you nose feel sore?I was treated for cold sores at one time,but then realised that this only happens once a month when on period.Iy completely disappeared when I was on GNRH agonists,so confirmed my thoughts.

Hello daffodil.

Yes completely!

I can't say my nose is sore, however it fells like there is a lot of pressure up there!

How are you doing?

Barbara x

I have noticed that I sometimes have blood in my tissue when I blow my nose around the time I am due on on or when I am on my period. I have only noticed it more recently and have started to keep a log to see if there is any correlation! I don't have a full on nose bleed or anything, and have only ever had about two nose bleeds in my whole life! It doesn't hurt or anything but I wondered if its endo related too xx