Next time you blow your nose, consider the contents. It could be spring allergies. It could be the cold. Or possibly, just possibly, it could be a severe case of brain leakage.

That’s right. Your brain could be leaking.

Joe Nagy of Arizona suffered from a constantly running nose for over a year and a half before his symptoms became so severe that he asked his doctor for help.

“I got to the point where I had tissues all the time,” he said. And it’s a good thing he got to the doctor when he did—surgery found a tiny hole in the membrane surrounding Nagy’ brain. After a near-fatal meningitis scare, the hole was repaired.

“I was scared to death, if you want to know the truth,” Nagy admitted.

The human brain secretes up to 12 ounces of brain fluid daily and leaks are not entirely uncommon. Dr. Peter Nakaji, a neurosurgeon from Barrow Neurological Institute, said head injuries or recent spinal taps or other brain surgeries can all cause brain fluid leakage.

Then again, it could just be the Arizona heat frying resident’s brain membranes, as a similar incident happened to a Tucson woman last December. She chalked it up to allergies and walked around with paper towels shoved into both nostrils for weeks before finally visiting a physician and being diagnosed.

Her doctor reports: “She’s not leaking anymore, but we have to make sure she doesn’t spring a new leak.”