A 17-year-old British girl has an undiagnosed bleeding disorder which means she has had to put her life on hold.
Marnie Rae Harvey, from Stoke-on-Trent says she has no friends anymore and didn’t do her GCSEs because she’s “always in the house” due to her condition – and even worse, doctors can’t do anything about it.
The student began coughing up blood in March 2013, however her life changed when she woke up in the middle of the night in 2015 with blood all over her face – she was bleeding from her eye.
Image via BBC
She told BBC’s Newsbeat: “The paramedics were just shocked because they’ve never seen it before.
“When I got to the hospital they looked in my eye but everything was clear.
“They can bleed and it can cover my face with blood and in seconds it’s just gone completely white back to normal.
“I had blood tests and they came back fine.”
Since then, she has continued to bleed intermittently from her ears, nose, gums, scalp, fingernails, tongue and eyes.
Image via BBC
She said: “It burns and then if it covers the pupils of my eye I can’t see.
“People just stare and I can only walk so far without being sick. I was at the hospital the other day and people were trying to take pictures and saying ‘urgh’ about my face and stuff.”
In an effort to find a cause, she has seen eye specialists, gynaecologists, haematology experts, neurologists and paediatricians, but to no avail.
Because the bleeding worsens when she’s due her period, gynaecologists are looking into conditions like endometriosis.
“They thought it was going to be a blood disorder but now I’ve had an injection called Prostap 3 to ‘stop my womb from working’ and if it’s that I’ll have an operation because they’ll look into endometriosis.”
Causes of haemolacria (blood in the tears) can include injuries, clotting problems and tear gland disorders however Marnie tested clear for all of the above.
Right now, Marnie is hoping that the Prostap 3 injection will work, but she has to wait until mid-April to find out.
So far, she’s not hopeful that it’s working.
“Because the injection makes you go through menopause symptoms, I’m going through the symptoms like sweating and mood swings but I’m still bleeding.
“The gynaecologists say they’ll carry on (testing).”
