My 2 year old daughter had a nosebleed (Epistaxis) for 30 minutes!

Last night, at 9:10 pm, we had the scare of our lives. My 2 year old daughter had a nosebleed (Epistaxis) for the first time and it scared us because for more than 20 minutes, blood just flowed down from her left nostril.

We tried to put ice and apply pressure but every time we try to look if the bleeding stopped, the blood would just flow down freely like there was an open faucet in her nose. At 9:30 pm, we decided to take her to an Urgent Care Center because we got really scared.

At the Urgent Care Center, the receptionist told me in a calm voice, "Don't worry she'll be fine". Okay. Maybe my hands were shaking while I was signing up my daughter's name and my voice was a bit shaky while I was talking to her that's why she told me that. I found it a bit irritating at the moment because I'm not the one to panic easily but at this moment, I am panicking.

We waited for about 10 minutes before she was seen by the doctor.

The doctor came in and looked at her nose. He removed the blood pooling at her nose and we were surprised of the super long and huge blood clot. It was formed, super long and very stretchy. I can't even imagine how that blood clot formed and fit inside my daughter's nose!

Her nose still bled a little after that and he lied her down. He made us press the bridge of her nose some more and came back with a prescription. We left and soon after my daughter's nose stopped bleeding.

My 5 year old daughter has occasional nosebleeds but it only last for less than 5 minutes. When I was about 8 years old, I used to have frequent nosebleeds too so at the back of my mind, maybe this was hereditary. Maybe they got it from me.

I practically know first aid on a nose bleed but seeing it this severe the first time made me research more about nose bleeding.

Here are some tips to treat nosebleeds in children:

1. Keep child in a sitting position and have him/her lean slightly forward.
2. Pinch the soft part of the nose to close the nostril and apply pressure to the vein as well.
3. Don't place anything inside the nose like tissue or gauze.
4. Hold for 5 minutes then check of bleeding has stopped. If not, then repeat step 2.

Ice can help stop nose bleeds (by constricting the blood vessels) but my daughter didn't like it. She squirmed and cried when we put the ice too long.

Has your child experience nosebleeds before? What did you do?