How To Stop A Nose Bleed

Hello. I'm Dr. Gemma Newman, and I'm a GP and broadcaster.

And today, I'd like to help you with a few top tips to improve your health. I'd like to talk to you about how to stop nose bleeds. Now firstly, I'd like to talk a bit about why nose bleeds happen.

The vessels of the top of the nose are really fragile, and so often they can burst without any good reason. However, there are some things that can make you more prone to a nose bleed. That would be things like having a cold, having flu, having hay fever, blowing your nose, picking your nose, things like that.

So obviously, it's important to try and avoid blowing your nose or picking your nose if you do get nose bleeds. Other things that can make it more likely would be things like irritants, chemicals, cocaine use, things like that. Now children are a lot more prone to nose bleeds than adults.

And, that may be in part because they tend to pick their noses more. So if you have a child who picks their nose, do tell them to stop because it could precipitate a nose bleed. Okay.

So now we've talked a little bit about why they happen, I want to talk to you about how to stop it. It's worth saying that if it's a really bad nose bleed, and it goes on for about twenty to thirty minutes or more, it's really best to go to the hospital to try and get some help with it. You might need to have your nose packed by a doctor or some other form of treatment.

Also, if you have a clotting disorder, or you're on any medicines that can make you more likely to bleed, then it's really worth getting some medical attention for your nose bleed. However, usually they're fairly mild, and you can deal with a nose bleed with a few simple measures at home. So the first thing that I think you should do is to obviously cover your nose.

Now you may have seen people in the past who did it like this. Putting their hand up and trying to cover the nasal bridge or far too high on the nose. This is wrong.

This is not going to help your nose bleed. What you need to do is to firmly press the base of your nose like this. You need to keep that going for about fifteen minutes and that should sort out your nose bleed.

It also often helps to lean forward at the same time, and I'll show you now, like this. In that way, you'll help the blood to clot more quickly at the top of your nose, thereby reducing the length of time that you have your nose bleed. If it's particularly bad and that's not helping, you can try a cold compress or ice at the top of the nose to try to restrict those blood vessels and again reduce the blood flow.

But as I said before, a simple pinching with your head forward should do the trick. If you're feeling at all dizzy or unwell, and you need to lie down, it's best to lie on your side rather than flat. And that should sort out your nose bleed much more quickly.

Any other top tips? Well, in the end, if you're getting them quite regularly, you might need to see an E.N.T.

or ear, nose and throat specialist. The reason for that is because sometimes if you're getting them very consistently, you might need to have an operation to cauterize or sort of stop the blood vessels from the top of the nose from producing blood. In the meantime, what you might be able to do is go to your G.

P., and they might be able to prescribe you an antibiotic ointment or antibiotic cream to snort up into the nostrils and reduce the amount of nose bleeds that you're getting. This might be quite useful if you're getting them not that often.

What I'd recommend is simply snorting up the ointment or the cream into both nostrils a couple of times a day for about ten days. And that should settle things down. And then you can use the ointment or the cream as or when you need to.

I hope all these top tips have been useful for you, but if you're not sure, or you're having very severe nose bleeds, it's really best to see your own doctor. Thank you. .