Blood in saliva with cough

The presence of blood in the mouth can be extremely worrying, especially if it is a sudden bleed for no obvious reason. Bleeding when coughing (hemoptysis), vomiting (hematemesis) or from the nose (epistaxis) indicates the most likely source of the bleed – the respiratory passages, gastrointestinal tract or nasal cavities respectively.

Blood in saliva in morning after sleeping

Many of the causes of bleeding in these cases may also be responsible for bleeding from the mouth (stomatorrhagia).

In order to identify the most likely cause, it is important to take preceding events into consideration.

Finding blood in the mouth is expected but nevertheless worrying and possibly serious after these conditions :

• after dental work
• postoperatively after surgery to the head or neck  (mouth, nose, nasal sinuses, pharynx, tonsils, larynx)
• after trauma to the head and neck

However, the sign of bleeding from the mouth in a situation where none of these events have previously occurred needs to be investigated further in order to quickly and accurately identify the site of the bleed.

It is also important to identify whether the

light blood in spit

light blood in mouth