A 20-year-old Chilean woman, Yaritza Oliva, cries tears of blood, and doctors aren't quite sure why.Since June, Oliva has been crying blood tears several times a day, a pain she called "indescribable."
While doctors have not officially diagnosed the 20-year-old, it's likely that she is one of several people to develop haemolacria, a rare condition marked by bleeding from the eyes.
A simple eye infection and conjunctivitis were ruled out since Oliva continued to shed tears of blood several times per day.
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What is Haemolacria ???
Haemolacria is a physical condition that causes a person to produce tears that are partially composed of blood. It can manifest as tears that are anything from merely red-tinged to appearing to be entirely made of blood.
Haemolacria is a symptom of a number of diseases,and may also be indicative of a tumor in the lacrimal apparatus. It is most often provoked by local factors such as bacterial conjunctivitis, environmental damage or injuries.
Acute haemolacria can occur in fertile women and seems to be induced by hormones, similarly to what happens in endometriosis.
Though a sanguineous discharge is relatively frequent in conditions of acute conjunctival hyperaemia and inflammation, occurrence of bleeding from conjunctiva as an isolated phenomenon is exceptionally rare.
Duke Elder outlined the differential diagnosis of bloody tears; severe anaemia, jaundice, vascular tumours, Osler-Weber-Rendu disease (hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia) haemophilia and other coagulopathies.
Other causes reported are vicarious menstruation, conjunctival manipulation for follicle expression in trachoma, clinical treatment of conjunctiva with silver nitrate and epistaxis with retrograde blood stream into conjunctiva through puncta lacrimalia .
Recently Bona-volanta and Sammaritino attributed orbital varix as a cause of bloody tears. In another interesting case Richard and Eifermam blamed secondary giant papillary conjunctivitis for bloody tears.
Read more scientific journals about Haemolacria at Google Scholar
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