[Q] nose bleeding during dive.

[CrowyCrow]

i have a friend that had nose bleed during dives. it happened about 10 mins after descend. there was no pain and seems like she just realised there is blood in her mask. this symptom occurs consectively on every dives for our trip on these 2 days.

i googled that some symptom could be mask/ear squeeze. however, i ruled them out because it didnt happen during descend and she felt no pain. she was cruising on a constant depth while it happened.

what could likely be the cause and how should we prevent it?

 

[Alastor]

Yes, the cause could be a mask squeeze, just a little at the beginning, breaking some blood vessels in the nose. Probably equalization squeezing the nose doesn't help, if her inner nose skin is delicate. Often it happens with no pain at all.
Did you note if the bleeding stops ?
If the bleeding occurs at the very end of the dive, surfacing, there could be a small bleeding into the sinuses caused by a squeeze at the beginning and pushed out when the air expands again.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I had a buddy who had that happen to all the time. I told him he was equalizing too hard. After that it never happened again.

 

[Bert van den Berg]

Wife has this problem half the time, no matter how slowly she decends. Her doctor told her she has very fragile blood vessels in the nose and can cure the problem with laser treatment. She decided that it's only a problem if other people are bothered by it. She takes an effort to 'clean up' before boarding after a dive.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

A little blood goes a long way. It usually looks much worse than it actually is. I have had this happen a few times, usually on the first dive after a month or two off and usually after difficulty equalizing. The capillaries in the nose rupture very easily. If it persists, a trip to the doc might be warranted. Alternative equalization techniques are a good idea too.

Good luck,
Jay

 

[Alastor]

Alternative equalization techniques are a good idea too.

Yes, I completely agree - even if hands free equalization is too difficult to learn, try to execute this one: Marcante-Odaglia or Frenzel.
Here Ear clearing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia you can find a number of link and short description.

 

[Neilwood]

I would tend to agree with the comments about weak capillaries in the nose - I used to be so bad that if I even scratched my nose it could start a nose bleed that could last for 30 mins. I did get it cauterised eventually (with sticks of silver nitrate) but still suffer occasionally from seemingly random nose bleeds from something as simple as rubbing my nose externally.

The treatment didn't hurt and helped a huge amount (I went from pretty much weekly bleeds to about 6 months).

I guess a lot depends on quantity of blood - a couple of drops in the mask will probably not be a big deal but if it keeps bleeding then treatment to stop it would probably be advisable.

The other thing would be, if it is due to equalising, to make sure they equalise early and often to prevent the need to try to overequalise.

 

[geogator]

It can also happen if you use a CPAP machine at night before a dive. Those machines can dry out your nasal passages and make them much more susceptible to bleeding on descent or ascent. If you use one regularly, I'd either skip it the night before diving or else swab just a little bit of water-based lubricant inside your nostrils before diving to moisten up the inner lining of your nose. I had that issue once and it worked like a charm for me.