If you're a follower of True Blood, you've seen tears of blood shed by many of the vampire characters – which is unsettling enough in a fictional setting, but even more disturbing when it happens in real life. Such is the case for Tennessee man Michael Spann, whose sudden onset of intense headaches was accompanied by blood pouring from his eyes.
Photo: John Partipilo/The Tennessean
According to a report in The Tennessean, Spann was in good health before he became afflicted with this condition in his early twenties – and the symptoms continue to occur once or twice a week. Doctors are still baffled as to what could be causing blood to ooze from his tear ducts... and why there has been an increase in reports of people with these symptoms over the past decade.
“Most of these were relatively young patients,” says ophthalmologist Dr. James “Chris” Fleming, who has discovered four such cases in his research – one of whom, Calvino Inman, is also from Tennessee. “As they matured, the bleeding decreased, subsided and then stopped.”