I had heard that dropping keys down the back of someone having a nosebleed will make it stop! I had a chance to try it...

 

We had a bunch of 10-year-old boys over to play, and one of them got a bloody nose. Poor guy...

But then I remembered something I had heard. Dropping a set of keys down a persons back who is having a nosebleed will make it stop!

I ran inside the house, grabbed some keys and proceeded to stuff them down this poor kids back.

That nose kept bleeding like no body's business. Then I thought, maybe I should read up on that there keys theory. Here's what I found from People's Pharmacy...

We have heard from many people who have had success stopping nosebleeds with keys or a cold butter knife against the back of the neck. We don’t know why this trick works, but one reader offered the following from his experience as a medic doing water rescue:

“The keys work because of the mammalian dive reflex. Cold hits the nerves in the neck, causing the blood vessels to constrict. You might notice your pulse slowing too.

“The dive reflex is why cold-water drowning victims are not usually pronounced dead until they are ‘warm and dead.’ Cold water only in the face/head area shunts blood to the organs and away from the skin and slows the metabolism for survival. The vital signs are often too weak to detect.”

This hypothesis sounds plausible to us. We can’t offer a better one.

 

The mom of the poor nosebleed kid saw me and said that her son really appreciated the ice pack I had put on the back of his neck. Ice pack? Ohhh, the keys! I told her what I had done, and now I'm thinking...maybe I'll try the ol' ice pack next time.

Although, trying to remember where I put either of those things will always be the challenge!

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