Mastitis AND Thrush?? WTF??

MsPurple24 · September 2011

I've had my share of pain and discomfort in nursing, mainly having to do with plugged ducts, and I know that 90% of the time, the advice given is "just keep nursing." That's been working for me, but this time I feel like I've been hit by the Evil Breastfeeding Gremlin. I've been ignoring pain for about 4 weeks because I figured I just had plugged ducts again, and I've been working on getting rid of them. It hasn't been working, and all of a sudden over the weekend, several things happened. I had intense, crazy nipple pain that felt like it did in those first couple of weeks of nursing (the raw, cracked, rip-your-eyes-out stage). AND I had internal, stabbing pain accompanied by some engorgement, which I was just trying to express by hand.

Finally, last night I had flu-like symptoms. We had a horrid night with Baby H, including a 45-minute screaming fit at 3am that could not be solved by nursing or any of our usual tricks. Meanwhile, I felt like I had the flu and had stabbing pain in my breast, so I couldn't rock or bounce the baby- Scott had to do all of it. I called the advice nurse line at Kaiser this morning, and she proceeded to tell me that I have symptoms of both Thrush AND Mastitis. Lovely.

So I'm going on antibiotics and a topical cream, but the antibiotics could potentially make the Thrush worse, so that's fun. Meanwhile, I feel like I have the flu and I'm completely useless in the classroom.

Thanks for joining my pity party. I'm miserable and trying not to take it out on my students!! I just want to go home to bed!!

futrkingsley · September 2011

Oh crap, that is a double wammy! Mastitis totally feels like the flu. Or at least it did when I had it. I got a sudden onset fever, chills, the whole deal and was in bed for about 12 hours. I didn't need treatment to beat it thankfully, just rest, tylenol and lots of massage. I'm sorry you have to skip the rest to go to work!

Thrush is sucky too. How long have you had it? Celyn has the best advice for beating it I think. If she doesn't come in and offer her advice, page her.

MsPurple24 · September 2011

futrkingsley:
Oh crap, that is a double wammy! Mastitis totally feels like the flu. Or at least it did when I had it. I got a sudden onset fever, chills, the whole deal and was in bed for about 12 hours. I didn't need treatment to beat it thankfully, just rest, tylenol and lots of massage. I'm sorry you have to skip the rest to go to work!

Thrush is sucky too. How long have you had it? Celyn has the best advice for beating it I think. If she doesn't come in and offer her advice, page her.

Yep, I literally have the headache, nausea, chills, sweating, achiness, fatigue, and weakness flu symptoms. Once I started feeling those last night, I knew that it had turned into Mastitis.

Honestly? I've probably had Thrush for 4-5 weeks or more. But since I didn't see any of the tell-tale white spots, I didn't think I had it. After going through the list of symptoms with the nurse, she confirmed that that's what it is. She ordered an anti-fungal cream, but I wonder if there's something different I should be using. Like I said, I have the nipple pain but not the white spots. I don't know.

EmmieB · September 2011

i got this chronically - it's why we weaned at 13 months.

take a nice long warm bath tonight. soak your boobs in the water. add some oatmeal (colloidal) and smear coconut oil on your boobs when you get out.

feel better, mama!

futrkingsley · September 2011

MsPurple24:
futrkingsley:

Oh crap, that is a double wammy! Mastitis totally feels like the flu. Or at least it did when I had it. I got a sudden onset fever, chills, the whole deal and was in bed for about 12 hours. I didn't need treatment to beat it thankfully, just rest, tylenol and lots of massage. I'm sorry you have to skip the rest to go to work!

Thrush is sucky too. How long have you had it? Celyn has the best advice for beating it I think. If she doesn't come in and offer her advice, page her.

Yep, I literally have the headache, nausea, chills, sweating, achiness, fatigue, and weakness flu symptoms. Once I started feeling those last night, I knew that it had turned into Mastitis.

Honestly? I've probably had Thrush for 4-5 weeks or more. But since I didn't see any of the tell-tale white spots, I didn't think I had it. After going through the list of symptoms with the nurse, she confirmed that that's what it is. She ordered an anti-fungal cream, but I wonder if there's something different I should be using. Like I said, I have the nipple pain but not the white spots. I don't know.

Were you looking for whitespots on yourself or on DC? DS and I had it off and on for oh about 6 months but rarely at the same time. Ticky beast! DS got it first with the white spots in his mouth but I didn't recognize it at first since they weren't cheesy -- just looked like peeling skin. I didn't get it until many months later and by then he didn't seem to have it at all. My nipples started out just painful, or shooting pain when I had let down but then progressed a lot to cracking, etc. I tried the home remedies I had used before (vinegar washes, antifungal cream that I washed off, sterilizing everything) but it didn't work and I ended up needing a month of diflucan, which I don't recommend. I've heard great things about coconut oil since then. Good luck!

love22 · September 2011

Ow, I hope it gets better soon. I know one thing that helped me was to not wear underwire bras. My lactation consultant said she sees a lot more cases of plogged ducts and mastitis in women that wear underwire bras while nursing.

Celyn · September 2011

Oh man, that's a double whammy. Sometimes thrush can get into the ducts, so you might want to treat from the inside as well as outside. You do that by adding probiotics to your diet. My preference with a known bacterial infection is to go for the gold -- just adding yogurt to your diet isn't going to do it. First off, there's a crazy amount of sugar in yogurt (even plain) and yeast feeds on sugar. Go straight to a high quality probiotic supplement that has at least 10 billion live organisms and 8-10 different strains of bacteria (I like the Klaire Labs one). Reducing sugar (including white bread, pasta, potatoes, etc.) and caffeine in your diet will help you recoup as well.

For more probiotics in the diet, you can simply saute up protein with some onions, garlic and olive oil in a cast iron pan. Things like kefir, raw sauerkraut, pickled (raw) veggies, and apple cider vinegar (again raw, not pasteurized -- Bragg brand is easy to find) have a high number of probiotics too.

Mastitis can be brought on by over supply. Have you ever noticed that as a problem? There are other causes, but that's the biggie.

Lastly, plain old, raw coconut oil gets rid of thrush. I'm a broken record on that this week

MsPurple24 · September 2011

I was looking for white spots on both H and myself, but didn't have any. The nurse told me that what I thought were just milk blisters were signs of thrush. Oops.

No underwire bras, not since pregnancy.

Celyn, thank you for the advice! I need to get my hands on some coconut oil.

Celyn · September 2011

Per the posts on thrush earlier in the week, make sure it's cold-pressed. The commonly found cold-pressed brand is Nutiva. Spectrum brand is expellier-pressed, which applies too much heat and kills the anti-fungal properties.

mommy2jay · September 2011

(((hugs))) sorry you are going through so much, hope you are feeling better soon!

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