Frequent nosebleeds can be a warning about your brain and lungs

Hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is a genetic disorder in
which some blood vessels do not develop properly. A person with HHT may form
abnormal capillaries, or abnormal connections between arteries and veins
— and those vessels are fragile and can burst.

**There is no cure for HHT, but if it is discovered early, effective
treatments are available.**

The visible signs

• Nosebleeds — the most common sign, from small abnormal vessels inside
  the nose
• Delicate red or purplish spots on the hands, fingertips, face, lips, the
  lining of the mouth and the nose, which lighten briefly when touched
• Bleeding within the stomach or intestines, from abnormal vessels lining
  the digestive tract

The ones that give no warning

**Additional signs of HHT include abnormal artery-vein connections within
the brain, lungs and liver, which often do not display any warning signs
before rupturing.**

That is the whole reason frequent nosebleeds are worth taking seriously. The
nosebleed is not the disease; it is the accessible symptom of a condition that
also puts fragile vessels somewhere a rupture is catastrophic and unannounced.

Which makes early discovery the thing that changes outcomes — screening for
the vascular malformations in the brain and lungs before one of them bleeds.

Who it affects

Men, women and children from all racial and ethnic groups, and
complications vary widely, even among family members — so a relative's
mild case says little about anyone else's.

Anyone with a family history and frequent nosebleeds has a reason to raise it.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.