A couple of years ago I got a nosebleed for no apparent reason. Two, actually, in the same day... it's probably safe to assume they had the same underlying cause since they were so close together in time. After getting past that little mystery, though, everything was fine.
Well, on Saturday I got another one. Again, no apparent reason... which I suppose could go unsaid. You either know definitely what causes a nosebleed (blunt trauma, cocaine, etc.) or you have no idea. I happened to be out in public at the time, so the afternoon turned into a frantic dash to a public restroom to stop the bleeding. Then with crisis averted, a previously-arranged family dinner pickup at Five Guys (where I'm sure the staff thought I was a raging coke fiend, red flecks of dried blood around the edge of my nostril) and home to take it easy and wonder what happened and assume the worst was over.
I woke up this morning with blood caked around my nose — apparently it had started up again in my sleep. Nothing I can really do about that, I guess, except hope I don't choke on my own blood some night while sleeping... though I take some solace in Wikipedia's claim that only four of the 2.4 million US deaths in 1999 were caused by nosebleeds.
Nonetheless, I think if this continues any further into this week I'm going to need to pay a visit to one of the local quickie care places and see what's going on. One of the most common causes of recurring nosebleeds is high blood pressure. That's my strongest suspicion at the moment. It runs in my family, my stress level has been fairly high the last few weeks, and at every workplace checkup thing I've been to the last few years my blood pressure has been a little bit higher. Not dangerously so, but still, I'm going to guess high blood pressure is a lot easier to address in the early stages.
Grr. I wonder if I can take care of high blood pressure with diet alone, or if I'm going to have to start exercising on a regular basis too.