I had never heard of it, of Hemolacrie. Until Lotte suddenly had plenty of blood in her eyes during this winter sport and literally cried tears of blood. I was shocked I can tell you. I take you through the events of that day and give you a little more knowledge about Hemolacria and blood crying.
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We are on winter sports for a short week. Lotte can't ski with her, so Frank or I take turns staying with her while the others go skiing. Now my love for skiing has also diminished somewhat since the skiing accident in which my knee ligaments were torn, so I quickly indicate that I will stay with her 😉 . This time too.
Now I have to add that Lotte complained once before this week. She had the feeling that she felt blood running down her throat while we were eating out. No nosebleed by the way. At that moment I still thought 'it won't be too bad ’, but later in our apartment she spat out a kind of blood clot. So apparently something was wrong. After that it was quiet for two days, until the day that Lotte really cried tears with blood and after a bad day and some googling I found out that it has a name:Hemolacrie.
In Lotte's case it started with a huge nosebleed. Now she never actually has a nosebleed, but because we are on winter sports in the mountains (1100 m high) I am not surprised. I myself can also suffer from that, a nosebleed during winter sports.
Her nosebleed wouldn't stop and she hung over the sink. In an attempt to staunch the blood, she pinched her nose with tissues and toilet paper. Of course I was there to change the wipes in the meantime. Until she suddenly screamed in panic 'Mom, what's happening? My eye is bleeding † I did not know what I saw! Her left eye filled with blood, you could just see the blood 'rise'. I was shocked and immediately picked her up (she can't walk without crutches because of her knee injury). With her head erect, the blood drained from her eye again but began to flow down her throat. It was gross, of course, and she immediately felt nauseous. I rushed downstairs with her to have a doctor call. Four floors with the elevator is suddenly very long I can tell you. Especially if there is again Hemolacria in the elevator. The blood in her eye starts to rise again and a tear of blood runs down her face. She blinks, sees nothing and panics even more.
I'm also slightly panicking, because what the hell is going on? Why is her eye bleeding? Is the blood pressure so high that the blood is simply forced through it? I don't get it, but it looks really nasty.
When we arrive at the bottom we walk straight to the reception. Once there, Lotte yells that she is not feeling well and collapses. She faints and slips through my arms. The French owner of our residence speaks a little English and immediately calls the doctor. Another Frenchman catches Lotte and together we lay her on the couch. Her nose is still bleeding, but she's no longer crying tears of blood thankfully. In the meantime I got hold of Frank, and luckily he will be back in our apartment complex soon. For a moment I saw again that - again just like a few years ago - I would have to go to the hospital alone with Lotte abroad.
The doctor informs the French owner that Lotte has to blow her nose well and that we have to pinch her nose for 10 minutes afterwards. With that the bleeding from her nose finally stops, we have not seen tears anymore. She herself is still quite 'absent' but slowly she is regaining consciousness. We go upstairs, there she crawls into bed shivering against me and we make it just in time for her to throw up. It looks like a bowl full of blood. But it's probably less than it looks when it's so spread out. Yet it is clearly visible that a quantity of blood has entered her stomach, the vomit is completely dark red. Yagh.
After a few hours of sleep she feels a lot better. I still call our own GP and we search for something on the internet. Haemolacria is a "known" phenomenon. Not that it happens often, but it can just happen. Crying tears of blood without falling because you have such a huge nosebleed that you are trying to staunch. I can honestly say that I was really shocked by that blood that suddenly came out of her eye.
By the way, there is a big difference in the tears of blood that you can cry. In many cases it is a fairly transparent red color because the blood is mixed with, for example, tear fluid. In Lotte's case it was bright red blood, caused by the nosebleed. The blood could find no other way out (by pinching the nose) than through the tear duct.
You understand I wasn't able to take a picture. So you will have to make do with a photo of 'the day after'. Maybe a good thing, because nightmares are guaranteed if I could have taken the photos. Kind of Halloween look. Below is a photo of a girl who has been diagnosed with Hemolacria, but she suffers from this 5 times a day. Disgusting, isn't it?
The cause seems clear to us. A nosebleed that won't stop causing the tear duct to fill with blood and make you cry blood. After some reading on the internet it appears that Hemolacria can also have a psychological cause (especially young girls with hysterical traits can suffer from this). You may also have a tumor behind your eye that causes blood to come out of your eye. For the time being, I am going for the positive, especially because nothing is wrong today and she just looks happy and healthy.
Only a few cases of Hemolacria are known worldwide. Cases where the crying of blood is a plus on top of the puzzling bruises these individuals have. These people can also not only bleed from their eyes, but also from nose or ears and even from fingernails.
I shouldn't read too much about it because that's what I'm going to imagine. This while the doctors here in France, and also our own GP, are not so concerned. The fact that the tear duct is in open connection with the nasal cavity is also a simple explanation for Lotte's case of Hemolacrie.
