I know I’ve dropped off the radar the last couple weeks, but rest assured: I’m still here, and will be back to blogging regularly very soon.
Turns out the weeks of exhaustion and flu-like symptoms were signs of something else going on: the dreaded mastitis. Took me a while to figure out (mainly because I never had the redness that I always heard was the key sign), but now I am on antibiotics and will hopefully be on the mend soon.
Through this experience, I have talked to at least four other women who have gone through this, and stopped nursing because they thought it would help. Let me just say, for those of you who don’t know: one of the best things you can do to help get over the infection is to nurse as frequently as possible on that side. If it is too painful to nurse, try pumping on a low setting. I have found that if I use a warm compress for about ten minutes before nursing, it goes a lot better.
If anyone else has had experience with mastitis and has survival tips they’d like to share, I’d love to hear it. It is taking me a lot longer to get over it than I thought it would.
Best for Babies
Strained Peas and Other Messes 
I had it twice. . .no fun and it did take me a long time to get over it. long, hot baths to soak my boobs in!
The big thing I learned when I was going through it was to ASK QUESTIONS and never take I don’t know for an answer. I had one doctor that was giving me daily shots, i was taking several different antibiotics and it just kept getting worse and worse, i wasn’t even nursing at the time. The doctor said he didn’t know what it was but he knew i didn’t need to see a surgeon/specialist.
I went ahead and made the appt on my own 3 months out, becuase there was no referal. I figured worst case scenario i would be better and i could cancel the appointment. Well i wasn’t. I was worse. When i got in there they ordered and emergency MRI found that the infection had spread through all of my milk ducts and they thought i might have had a rare form of cancer (which i didn’t luckily)
It turned out the original doctor wasn’t giving me the right KIND of antibiotics, apparently there are two different specifications. Also, because he hadn’t let me do any imaging, there was a gianormous abcess in there that no one could see without the MRI. Eventually, everything took so damn long that the infection ate its way through my skin, so you can imagine how hot that was. I have permenant scaring on my breast from it and my milk ducts may be useless if i have more children.
If it feels wrong, get a second opinion honey, preferably from a specialist.