Systematic nosebleeds are not uncommon in children and adolescents, but in one young man, they appear to have a very unusual cause.
Bleeding from the nose, repeated several times a month for three years, forced the 22-year-old resident of Saudi Arabia to seek help from doctors, who found a white bone mass in his nose about 1 centimeter long.
After an unexpected find, the otolaryngologist decided to consult with a dentist, who came to the conclusion that the unknown mass is, in fact, an additional tooth, which for some unknown reason grew in the young man's nose. At the same time, all 32 teeth were present in the patient's mouth.
After the doctors removed the extra tooth, the man recovered completely and reportedly stopped suffering from nosebleeds.
“Extra teeth, and even those growing incorrectly, are not such a rarity. But doctors have to remove them extremely rarely from the nasal cavity. It should be said that this case is very unusual. In my entire practice, I have never seen teeth grown in my nose,”said Dr. John Helstein, dentist and professor of oral pathology at the University of Iowa.
According to the dentist, it's amazing that the tooth went unnoticed for such a long time.
Studies have shown that between 0.15 and 3.9 percent of people have more teeth than usual. In this case, the patient most likely had a mesodense - an extra middle tooth that sits between the incisors.
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It's unclear why some people grow extra teeth or how they might appear in the nasal cavity. Nevertheless, there are suggestions that genetic factors may also play a role.