has anyone's child had their nose cauterised?

[getbakainyourjimjams]

If so what does it involve? Ds1 has fairly frequent heavy nosebleeds. I had them as a child and had my nose cauterised. In 1975 that involved an overnight stay in hospital which I think would be a complete impossibility with ds1. TBH we think the procedure will be an impossibility anyway but am interested to know what is involved these days, before I reject it.

There are many ways of doing it, the easiest is to touch the leaking blood vessel with a silver nitrate stick, it is a 2 min job. The other method would perhaps involve i diathermy, Instruament with a heat tip that burns the vessel.

At a guess I would say it It could be done with local or could probably be done as a day case if you required sedation.

Hmm does that involve keeping still (taking a blood sample took 3 people to hold him down- he was 3 at the time- he's a lot stronger at 7). He also can't wait and would have no concept of staying in a cubicle.

if he was sedated would he need blood pressure readings? no-one's ever managed to get one from him and my GP refuses to even try now.

it's not sounding very likely is it? Oh well.

I had it done a few times as described by chapsmum. However, it never worked properly - what did eventually work rather miraculously (from 2 gushing nosebleeds a day to none at all) was homeopathy. I'm not even a 'believer'. Might it be something you would try?

I do use homeopathy, it seems to work well with him, will have a chat with his homeopath when she gets back from abroad. Might give him a dose of phosphorus in the meantime.

TBH jimjams, I've seen our consultant I/N diamorph to help calm very aggitated kids who have injured themselves, this does not involve keeping very still but then it would depend on the site of the nose bleed. I think it would all depend on your anesthatist, perhaps he would tollerate entonox or inhaled anasthetic?

He'd have to be held down to take entenox or anything inhaled. he couldn't have the procedure explained to him before hand so it would be very traumatic I think.

Could you get him to blow up a ballon, if so you could probably coax him into takin ght gas.
But the benifits have to outweight the disadvantages. If the bleeds are not distressing him too much or causing him to be anaemic, its probably not worth it.
However with a good anaesthetist this could be a very simple and quick op.
Howver it does not always guaretee sucess.

If they were to do it with silver nitrate they could potentially do it if he was asleep, but the logistics may be to dificult to put into place for that one...

No couldn't get him to blow up a balloon unfortunately. No-one has seen inside his mouth even for 5 years, no dentist or doctor. He just doesn't have the language to understand. Think language skills of a 15 month old- 18 months top with very limited imitation ability. Thanks for your advice, it sounds like its going to better to just carry on with the nosebleeds. I thought that would be the case but needed to check.

yeah, its a hard call, the only thing I could possibly think of is perhaps a referal to a play specialist, but I'm sure you have probably considered that.

Sorry I couldnt be of more help

I had mine cauterised as an outpatient when I was about eight or nine, after a really really bad nosebleed that wouldn't stop. Didn't have any gas - they used a local anaesthetic injection up my nose. I'm not sure how they did it, but I remember it smelled like something was burning for days afterwards. Much less scary than the nosebleeds though.

Never had any nosebleeds since, apart from very occasional spots.

Hmm I'm not sure a play specialist would be any good really, he doesn't play really, just wants to fiddle with taps etc. I'll ask his teacher at school next time I see him. The only way I can think of doing it really is if there could be a team organised ready and waiting - we go in, no waiting, held down with a person to each arm and leg and someone holding his head, do the business, get up and go. But I doubt very much there are doctors that would be willing to do that.