A woman who had a runny nose for years has recently found out that the liquid was not mucus but brain fluid.
Kendra Jackson had the problem, accompanied by other symptoms like coughing, sneezing, and needing to continuously blow her nose after she suffered from a traumatic car accident in 2013 in which she hit her head.
Though doctors kept saying it was due to allergies, Jackson had a gut feeling it was something worse.
"[It was] like a waterfall, continuously, then it would run to the back of my throat. I couldn't sleep. I was like a zombie," Jackson said, according to nbc4i.com.
It is only after five years that doctors were able to find out the real reason. She was diagnosed with Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak (CSF).
Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak happens when cerebral spinal fluid - the fluid around the brain - leaks through a hole in the skull bone. Depending on where the skull bone is damaged, the brain fluid can leak through either nose or ears.
Jackson was leaking about half a pint of brain fluid a day, reported fox10tv.com.
Doctors carried out a surgery on the woman where they took some of her own fatty tissue and plugged the tiny hole between her skull and nostrils.
"We go through the nostrils, through the nose. We use angled cameras, angled instruments to get us up to where we need to go," said Dr. Christie Barns, a rhinologist at Nebraska Medicine, as reported by nbc4i.com. Earlier, the ailment needed a brain surgery to get cured.
