Bloody Nose
Bloody noses always happen at the worst times: in the middle of the big game, in the middle of taking a test, at 2 in the morning, etc. The most common cause of bloody nose in kids is a combination of dry or irritated nasal passages mixed with nose picking. So needless to say, most kiddos will get a bloody nose at some point. The key to stopping bloody noses is having the child tilt their head forward, hold the nose closed from a little below the middle of the nose, and don’t let go for at least 5 minutes. Constant continuous pressure is how to best stop a bloody nose. And when I say don’t let go, I mean don’t let go. Don’t release pressure to check if it is still bleeding 2 minutes in. All you are going to do is open up the scab that is trying to form, and you gotta start all over.
If your kiddo is getting bloody noses a few days of the week or more, then we would need to start addressing nasal irritation and dryness that can cause cracking around the blood vessels in the nose. Applying a pea-sized amount of Vaseline or Aquaphor to the inside of each nostril 3 times a day can greatly reduce dryness and cracking. Other options to keep the nose hydrated include having a cool-mist humidifier going in the home/bedroom, nasal saline spray, or Ayr nasal spray with aloe.
When a bloody nose occurs and takes longer than 20 minutes to stop, there is usually a large group of blood vessels that some people have in their noses that is the culprit. When we have bloody noses that take this long to stop bleeding, we will often have the kiddo seen in clinic or the emergency department for nasal packing to stop the bleeding and then afterward have a chat with an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctor to talk about cauterizing the blood vessel that is causing the nose bleeds because we can’t have kids bleeding for over 20 minutes all the time. Not a good look, and not good for preventing anemia in kids.
But what if the bleeding occurs after an injury like getting hit in the face with a ball or falling forward onto their face? If this occurs, we still want to stop the bleeding in the same way; hold the nose shut if able to. If it is too painful, the kiddo would need to be seen in clinic or in the emergency department for a doc to look at the nasal septum for signs of a possible nasal fracture or septal hematoma (blood collection along the center of the nose) that would need to be drained urgently.