Please help! Thrush? Tongue tie? Neither? Please help.

[vivie24]

I have a six week old baby boy (first baby, as you'll probably gather from my stressing) and am at end of my tether. I'm partly reticent about posting as I know there will be a range of opinions and that's one of the things I'm struggling with but I'm finding it hard to cope mentally and need to share.

Am exclusively breastfeeding. For about the first three weeks it was very painful - I had cracked nipples etc. The HV prescribed oral thrush treatment (nystatin) for DS and clotrimazole cream for me even though he had no symptoms and my nipple pain was not definitively thrush, it just could be (we weren't swabbed). I decided not to medicate as I didn't feel there was enough certainty and it's such a long route of treatment which may or may not work.

I then saw a bf specialist who helped me improve my latch but also referred us for tongue tie. Bf has subsequently been much better in last few weeks and tongue tie clinic coming up on Monday - meanwhile baby is gaining loads of weight so that is not the issue. He is however very gassy and prone to guzzling/noisy feeding/puking. But then this grassiness can also be symptom of thrush apparently...

Over last week he has then developed nappy rash. HV once again said thrush, prescribed clotrimazole for nappy area and remonstrated with me for not treating us both before, saying I needed to do it all at once, BUT then GP at 6 week check up said not definitively nappy thrush and to treat with Metanium. Now I'm using both clotrimazole and Metanium in nappy as belt & braces but still not the oral/nipple thrush treatment as not sure... HV said to use it, GP said 'even if it is thrush, don't use it - nappy thrush is different'.

I'm also mindful of the advice from the Breastfeeding Network not to treat for thrush if you are waiting for tongue tie assessment.

Basically am left feeling desperate about lack of consistency in advice, who knows best and which course of action to follow. Literally within the space of one day I will tell myself it's not a big deal and decide to do x (eg just medicate nappy rash not full thrush treatment) and then by a few hours later I'm thinking I should do something else.

Please can anyone advise on anything? I'm losing the plot.

Hi,
I'm not sure how much help I can be, but my DS had a tongue tie and also nappy thrush so hopefully it's some use.

DS was incredibly gassy and could projectile vomit across half a room before his tongue tie was clipped, so that matches your experiences if it is tongue tie. I expressed milk for him to take in bottles as he couldn't latch, but the couple of times he did latch were incredibly toe-curlingly painful and different from the pain that I got with the milk letdown for a while after his tongue tie was clipped.

He's had nappy thrush a couple of times but has never had mouth thrush. First time, there wasn't the white spots you'd expect, just very raw red patches and broken skin and it kept getting worse until we used the red cannesten cream you can get for thrush that a midwife recommended. That cleared it up fairly quickly. The second time which was months later, he had the white spots and the GP prescribed timodine, which cleared it up. I can't say I noticed him being extra gassy or pukey during the episodes of thrush.

Have you rang any of the the breastfeeding helplines for advice about treating thrush? I'd imagine they mean not to treat mouth thrush, I can't see why you couldn't treat nappy thrush if that's what he has.

How bad is the nappy rash? Depending on the severity you could try applying natural yogurt onto his skin and wait until you've been to the tongue tie clinic. If it's bad, I'd phone the GP for a second opinion and tell them what the HV has said and ask about treating the nappy rash only.

Tiktok is a breastfeeding consultant I think and is usually around the feeding boards so you could report your post and ask MNHQ to move it there as you might get more replies there.

Hope that helps!

So sorry to hear that you are both struggling. The weight gain is a bit of a red herring. Babies with tt can gain weight quite well, have a read of this and see if any of the symptoms seem familiar.

If you are in pain it sounds as if you need some RL support, unless your hv has had extra training it's very likely that she knows much about Bfing. Is there a La Leche Group near to you? Agree with giving one of the Bfing Helpines a call too, just to double check the advice from your HV.

I'd ask MNHQ to move this thread to Infant Feeding, you may get some more answers.

Sorry to hear you are having a crap time. I found the inconsistency of advice around breastfeeding an absolute nightmare, and with dd1 I ended getting really confused and stressed (coupled with my near pnd) meant that I never ebf and she stopped bf at all before 4 months.

However with dd2, she got her tounge tie cut at 10 days and that made an epic difference and she fed so much better. So hopefully you will have a similar experience!

I would echo jilted And try and find breastfeeding specialists to get advice from as your hv and

Whoops sorry. Can't mn and bf at the same time!
... As your hv and gp are not specialists, if you are a member of NCT or is their a la leche nr you or if it is like the tounge tie clinic we attended you got loads of info on local NHS bf midwives, who were brilliant for me.
I got slightly confused with your medication but are you giving your child medication for an area it doesn't work on against the advice of your gp? And when you know you aren't supposed too?

Re nappy rash - do you do enough nappy free time? And we found that dd1 got a rash in pampers but not in natys?

Hope that helps.