Doctors were left shocked when a housewife on her period started crying tears of blood in an extremely rare medical anomaly.
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The 25-year-old woman from Chandigarh, India, was diagnosed with haemolacria after seeking help for the condition at the city’s Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Dailystar reports.
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Haemolacria is a physical condition that causes a person to produce tears that are partially composed of blood.
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Dr Soumitra Ghosh, who documented the case in a new study, said: \”Haemolacria means bloody tears. Patients will have blood coming out from one or both eyes.
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Dr Ghosh
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\”Blood coming out with tears is a very alarming clinical entity both for the patient and physician. If you see blood coming out from the eyes, you can imagine how scary a situation it is.
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\”Haemolacria is a rare clinical condition. It has multiple causes. One of the causes is vicarious menstruation.
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\”Vicarious menstruation is defined as cyclical bleeding in other extrauterine organs like the nose, eyes, ears, intestine, lungs, nipples and skin.
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\”Haemolacria due to vicarious menstruation is very, very rare. Only a few cases have been reported in the medical literature so far.\”
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The exact cause of the condition is uncertain, but doctors think the fact that the patient was menstruating at the time could be important.
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Dr Gosh explained how the condition appears to be the eyes\’ blood vessels responding to hormonal changes in the body.
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He continued: \”Certain ocular and orbital tissues are seen to be hormonally responsive.
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\”Oestrogen and progesterone can increase the permeability of the capillaries resulting in hyperemia, congestion and secondary bleeding from extrauterine tissue.\”
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The patient was treated with oral oestrogen-progesterone contraceptive pills (combined pill).
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On her three month follow-up, the patient was on these pills and she’d had no repeat of the episode.