Hello. I am a 33 year old woman who has
had 2 severe episodes of epitaxis. The
first was the day after the birth of my
son(2 and a half years ago) severe
posterior bleeds that took a week to
control in hospital with cauterizing
numerous times and packing. Transfusions
were required and the ent, doctors and
nurses said they had never seen anything
like it but had no definite cause. During
the 7th month of mysecond pregnancy(last
june) they began again, this time worse,
another week in hospital, packing(still
bleeding thru packing), transfusions,
bringing up clots the size of tomatoes,
etc. They were going to attempt a surgery
but were araid of causing early delivery
for my daughter but said if they had to, I
would have no choice. Anyhow, finally
bleeding came under control and I was
released and have had no furthur episodes
but had a tubal as was advised that
another pregnancy could be fatal. The
only thing that the ent and doctors could
come up with was that the pregnancy
hoemones were causing this. Months after
giving birth I went back to see specialist
who had a really good look and said that
all seemed normal nd was pretty sure
bleeds were from spenopalatine artery.
Said that the only way to know for sure
and to fix would be an angiogram which
would be too risky if there was no need at
this time. She said that she was pretty
sure that since they only hapened right
after birth andduring pregnancy that I
should be okay since I won't be having
any more babies. I di9d find a wierd
correlation recently though. Prior to my
first pregnancy I was on the pill for 8
years. The month I went off, I started
having some pretty big bleeds(but nothing
like the others). Exactly 15 montsh later
they started again(march 2003), and
exactly 15 months later(june 2004) they
started again. Could it be a cycle or
possibly due to all teh pill and pregnancy
hormones. Have you ever seen this happen
before?? Am I okay to just assume that I
will be fine now that I will not get
pregnant or be on the pill again??? Could
menopause trigger them again???? Sorry so
many questions as this has been a source
of great fear for me. I actually was
diagnosed with post traumatic stress
syndrome afterthe first episode. Anyhow,
thanks for your time.
