Picking your nose can KILL you:

A man died because he picked his nose so much he bled to death, an inquest heard.



Manchester coroner Nigel Meadows said about the death of 63-year-old Ian Bothwell: 'There is no explanation for this death other than he died from a nose-bleed, consistent with picking his nose. I do not think for a moment he knew what he was doing was going to cause his death.'
He recorded a verdict of misadventure.

A pathologist concluded that Mr Bothwell, who suffered from dementia brought on by alcoholism, had picked his nose so much that it had caused him to bleed to death.
The only place he found any contributory evidence was inside Mr Bothwell's nasal cavity, which was full of blood.

Dr Benbow told the inquest: 'The nasal cavity was filled with blood. My conclusion is that the most likely cause of death is epistaxis, the technical term for a nose-bleed.

'The most common cause of epistaxis is picking the nose and I believe that is likely to be what happened.'

Mr Bothwell had been a fit young man until he suffered a brain haemorrhage when he was 20. He was unable to work and he quickly descended into alcoholism.

His only relative was a sister living in Cornwall, who he saw just once in 30 years at his mother's funeral in 1986.

Aside from the depressing backstory, I am surprised that this doesn't happen more often. At least in children anyway. When my son was about 18months - 2years old, he would constantly pick his nose until it would start bleeding. He probably wouldn't stop there either, but...ya know...the blood would catch our attention. In fact, sometimes I'll notice some crusted dried blood in his nose now; but not very often thank goodness. It's pretty common for children to pick their nose to excess, so it's a wonder that there aren't serious medical problems that arise.

Word to the wise: Tissues are your friend!