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Man Treated By Emergency Doctors Because He Started Crying Blood

Man Treated By Emergency Doctors Because He Started Crying Blood

It's called haemolacria and it sounds absolutely awful

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

A man had to receive emergency treatment at a hospital when he started crying tears of blood completely at random.

Jeez, that would be enough to worry anyone. No wonder he was horrified.

The 52-year-old was presumably just minding his own business when tears of blood - actual blood - started streaming from his eyes.

Naturally, he rushed off to hospital where he told doctors that he'd never experienced anything like that before and that he'd had no particular trauma to his eyes.

University Hospital Messina

He told the medical professionals that the eye-bleeding had just occurred out of the blue about two hours earlier on.

The first incident lasted for a couple of minutes before stopping as suddenly as it had started. Then, it started up once again as soon as he arrived at the hospital, just before he was to undergo the examination.

According to an article published in the New England Medical Journal the man - who is thought to be from Italy - had no problems with his vision and had completely normal blood pressure.

So what caused this horrible thing to happen?

After the doctors performed a slit-lamp examination (where they basically shine a really bright bit of light into the patients eye) and discovered that it was a case of tangled blood vessels in both of the man's eyelids.

A slit-lamp examination in progress.
PA

Nothing too serious, luckily, but still a pretty damn horrible thing to happen to anyone.

The man was suffering from a rare disorder called haemolacria. That's just a fancy way of saying 'blood-crying'.

Ordinarily this is a symptom of something else. It could be from a trauma, or an infection, or simply that the eye is a bit inflamed.

It can also be a sign of menstruation, although it is very unlikely that this was the case on this occasion.

In certain circumstances it can be a tip-off to doctors that something else is wrong, like a tumour or a blood disorder.

But hey, it's not always something like that. In this instance there doesn't seem to be any discernible cause. The guy simply stopped bleeding from his eyes and was given some drops to clear up the tangled blood vessels.

Oh, and they told him to make a repeat appointment about a year later but in that time period he reported that no other instances occurred.

That's good, then.

If it happens to you, just go to the doctor - not like you'd need telling that.

Featured Image Credit: University Hospital Messina

Topics: World News, Weird