Painful breasts please help

[HP07]

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice. I am EBF my 7 week old son and I have bad breast pain. It is particularly in the LHS but the other one is not very comfortable either. I have a lump which was checked by the GP today and he has started me on some antibiotics - I assume in case of mastitis. To be honest it has never been comfortable breastfeeding, as to begin with, I had sore nipples and some blood blisters. I used lanisoh for the first few weeks and they are fine now but it still hurts to feed and my left breast aches even when I'm not feeding. My HV checked my technique at the newborn visit and couldn't see any issues with it. Could this pain be to do with latch or something else? I have been treated for thrush also and so has my son.
The other thing to note is that on the good side the feed often starts off ok, once the initial let down is over, but then my son might smack his lips or splutters as my letdown seems quite fast and that hurts and then he seems to change his latch. If I took him off and repositioned him everytime he did this we would never finish feeding!

Can anyone give any advice or thoughts? Thanks

[secretgirl]

I've struggled with pain while bf and I've found that nipple shields have helped me enormously. Annoying to use to be honest but they help both of us.

[AprilShowers16]

Are you certain the thrush has gone? I know it can be really hard to get rid of. I had pain in my breasts fit hours after feeding a d it only stopped after a couple of courses of medication

[readingrainbow]

Hmmm. Could be tongue tie. My DD had posterior tongue tie, so it was very tricky to diagnose. The tongue wasn't the classic heart shape, and her latch looked good from the outside, but she was struggling mightily to feed, and would lose her grip on the latch, so slip onto the nipple and cause me lots of discomfort.

My HV had a woeful amount of training on the subject so I ended up leaning heavily on my local LLL leader. She was a godsend.

If you could get hold of a LLL leader, she might be able to help you or get yourself to a baby cafe? In the meantime, if his latch is slipping, try feeding in a reclined position, so he's not fighting against gravity to keep his latch secure. Also, massage that lump! During feeds, in the shower, with a warm, wet cloth. Don't let the antibiotics do all the work; it won't go away nearly as fast.

[HP07]

I'm not sure if the thrush has gone but equally I was never sure if it was the right diagnosis in the first place or not. My son showed no signs and my only sign was the pain. We were both treated.
If it was a tongue tie wouldnt he be struggling to gain weight? He's in the 75th centile, up from the 50th at his newborn check so he is doing really well feeding wise, it's just painful for me. I think I will have to go to a breastfeeding support group you are right. This morning the pain is really bad when I'm feeding. It seems to be getting worse all the time.

[Fruitbatyogi]

Sound like you might have a breadt abcess to me. I had one with dd.

Breast surgeon was vv cross with gp for not referring immediately ( gp gave antibiotics)

Treatment was drainage with a tiny needle guided by ultrasound. - and I have never felt so instantly better in my life it was amazing!

Went on to feed dd to 20 m with no more problems.

If you have a lump definitely go back to gp and ask is it abcess and if so demand a referral - I really wish I had done that earlier and not just had one set of antibiotics after another!