Epistaxis

hemorrhage from the nose, usually due to rupture of small vessels overlying the anterior part of the cartilaginous nasal septum. Minor bleeding may be caused by a blow on the nose, irritation from foreign bodies, or vigorous nose-blowing during a cold

The Free Dictionary

Since I was a little kid I would sometime have nose bleeds, especially when I had a cold and would blow my nose a lot. I recently actually started tracking this, and it seems to happen every 2-3 months, but until now, the bleeding stopped in half an hour or one hour at most.

But on Saturday, it didn't. It started around 7 AM. It stopped 2-3 times, but it resumed at the smallest effort (like getting up). I tried pinching my nose, laying down, standing up and tilting my head forward and other things I found on the internet, but the bleeding continued.

After about four hours, I decided to go to the ER. I was a bit scared, knowing that probably they would do a nasal cauterization to close off all the capillaries that keep breaking. I was also scared because it was my first visit to the ER and my first more "serious" thing that needed treatment at a hospital. And, because of my awesome bubble that I live in on Facebook, I was also a bit scared about nosocomial infections^[1], which have made several headlines lately in Romania. Even the day before I heard from some friends about how long they
had to wait at the ER and how rude the doctors were.

But I have to say, I was mostly pleasantly surprised. The nurses and the doctors at the ER were very nice, calm and friendly. The wait times were quite short. After I got my blood pressure measured, I was sent upstairs to the ENT section. After a short wait here, the doctor passed by me on the hall, barely looking at me, and told the nurse to prep me for cauterization. Here things weren't quite as nice, the doctor seemed particularly bored of doing this, but the actual cauterization didn't take more than half a minute and it wasn't that painful! Well, I had my nose stuffed with anesthetics just a minute before, but still. Then the doc stuffed my nose with nasal packing, told me to come back in 5 days to take it out and sent me on my way.

So, I got over my first "intervention" at a hospital and hopefully I fixed the nose bleeding problem for a while! Go Spitalul Județean Oradea!