WHAT I HAVE LEARNT FROM THE LAST SEVEN YEARS...
What I have learnt from my travails First of all, a reminder of those troubles: ( PLEASE scroll past if you’ve already read all this before!) In my forties I realised I had inherited HHT (hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia) from my mother – mainly because I started having worse nosebleeds. HHT is a genetic bleeding disorder, characterised by malformations of the blood vessels which bleed – these can be in the nose (90% of patients) plus also could affect the lungs, brain, gut, mouth, liver, etc etc. It can be a contributor to Afib as the mis-plumbing in the liver can lead to increased pressure in the heart and cause problems. It is estimated that only 10% of people who have HHT are diagnosed. I have seen many ENT specialists over the years and they are all pretty uninformed about it – I was lucky enough to know it was in my family via grandad, aunt and mum. My nosebleeds have been treated at a specialist centre in London with a ...