Nosebleeds, in kids and adults, are most common in winter because the dry air in super-heated homes dries out membranes in the nose, making tiny blood vessels more prone to leak or burst, said Dr. Ralph Metson [cq] an ear, nose and throat specialist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Most nosebleeds – perhaps 99 percent – occur at the front of the septum, the cartilage that separates the two nostrils. This is a spot where four blood vessels converge. These so-called anterior nosebleeds, which are not dangerous, almost always respond to simple home remedies like sitting up (because lying down increases pressure on blood vessels, promoting bleeding) and squeezing the nostrils together for 20 minutes or so. Putting ice or a cold cloth on the face may also help.
A more serious – but very rare – type of nosebleeds is the “posterior” type, which occur farther back in the nose, where bony tissue makes it difficult to stop by bleeding by squeezing. This kind of nosebleed is more likely to occur in people with high blood pressure or those who have an injury to the nose or face.
A high-flow, hard-to-stop posterior nosebleed needs medical treatment, said Dr. Andrew Lane [cq], director of the division of rhinology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes in Baltimore.
In some cases, doctors can cauterize the site of bleeding with silver nitrate and you can go right home. But if doctors have to pack your nose with a foam-like substance called Merocel or with gauze, or if they must insert and inflate a tiny balloon to put pressure on the leaking blood vessel, you may have to stay in the hospital – with these things in your nose – for several days to get adequate pain control.
If you get a nosebleed after any kind of head injury, you should get a CT scan because the bleeding may come from a skull fracture. To avoid anterior nosebleeds, you can use a humidifier and put a tiny dab of an antibiotic ointment like Bacitracin or Neosporin in your nose at night to keep things moist.