Are you ready for flu season, or winter in general?
Fall is the time of year when many people start to pay more attention to their diet and exercise habits in order to strengthen their immune systems.
If you're one of those people, good on you because the less you get sicker, the better.
But if you do happen to get the common cold, this next unusual case will make you think twice before you blow your nose...
One woman blew her nose so hard that she was successfully able to alleviate that stuffy feeling, but she ended up injuring her face in the process, according to a report in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
Can blowing your nose too hard actually cause damage?
The 36-year-old British woman was at work when she blew her nose so hard that she temporarily lost vision in both eyes.
Hours later, blood started dripping from her nostril, and the skin around her left eye started to swell.
If that wasn't enough to convince her to go to the emergency room, a stabbing pain in her head and neck led her straight through those doors.
Doctors took a CT scan of her face to understand the extent of the trauma, and what they discovered was surprising.
That forceful blow caused a fracture in a bone (the lamina papyracea) surrounding the left eye socket.
It would be safe to assume that this was a freak accident. Eye-socket fractures usually occur when someone gets punched or hit in the face with an object.
The lead author that wrote about this bizarre case, Dr. Sam Myers, a surgeon at North Middlesex University Hospital in London, told Live Science that this was the first time he heard of someone severely injuring themselves simply by blowing their nose.
Myers does have an idea as to why this happened, though...
"For one thing, the woman had a cold during the week of the incident and had been blowing her nose more frequently," Live Science reported Myers saying.
"And the way she blew her nose could've also played a role: The woman tended to close off one nostril and then blow forcefully, which almost doubles the pressure in the sinuses as it forces all of the pressure out through the remaining open nostril, instead of both nostrils."
The woman was also a smoker, which may have made her prone to a fracture, since smoking changes the pressures in the sinuses.
It's also possible that the woman had weak bones.
While this case is rare, it does make you think twice about the way you blow your nose!
Do you bleed when you blow your nose?
If you're reading this article worried about all the times you've bled when blowing your nose, just know that you're not alone.
This is actually quite common, and isn't too much cause for concern.
People who blow their nose frequently, have dry nasal cavities or sinuses, pick their nose often, or are on blood thinning medications tend to bleed when they blow their nose.
If this is something that concerns you, talk to your doctor about it.
[H/T: Live Science]