What are the causes of sudden nose bleed? – Dr. Lakshmi Ponnathpur

“There are lot of conditions which give rise to acute nose bleed. We can go systematically as one of the cause being trauma. During any blows nose is the most vulnerable structure which gets injured. Any injury with a fractured nasal bone or soft tissue injury to other structures of the cheek bones and other bones can result in a brisk nose bleed. Infective conditions include acute rhinitis, chronic rhinitis, acute sinusitis, acute exacerbations of allergic rhinitis, forceful blowing of the nose. Nose picking is another common condition of nose bleed. Not to forget about the septal spurs which are kinking upon the local blood vessels and whenever least amount of trauma occurring on to the septum the individual can result from nose bleed. Some of the rarer causes being malignant conditions of the nose and in adolescent males the condition called angiofibroma of the nose where there can be very brisk severe nose bleed. Sometimes coming to the systemic causes we have to keep in mind hypertension. Raised blood pressure is a very important cause of recurrent nose bleed. This is a posterior epistaxis coming from high up in the nose. Uncontrolled blood pressure really results in a massive nose bleed. Some of the blood dyscrasias also can cause serious epistaxis. Purpuras, haemophilia and any other clotting or bleeding factor deficiency can result in a brisk recurrent nose bleed. There is another condition called hereditary haemorrhagic telengiectasia where there are small abnormal capillaries scattered all around the mucosa of the nose. These people keep on coming with recurrent minor or sometimes major nose bleed. Medications like aspirin or clopidogrel can result in thinning of the mucosa result in quite copious epistaxis. Sometimes environmental conditions like excessive heating or dryness of the air can result in epistaxis.

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