I can't really read a thread like this and not respond as I had thrush terribly with my newborn DS. I too am prone to vaginal thrush and had a really serious bout of it postnatally too, plus abx in labour and postnatally, so prime thrush breeding ground!
I delayed treatment as I thought it was a latch issue- which it partly was. However as DS got bigger and better at latching on the thrush got worse and my nipples went this awful vibrant, shiny pink and the right one eventually cracked deeply. I got the wrong prescription at first, cried at every single feed, was either thinking about pain or actually in pain and it really was worse than labour- because it felt never ending.
What I did in the end:
- Got the BfN leaflet recommended drugs and doses to the letter. Kicked up a bit of a fuss in order to do so. DS was 'too young' (load of crap, I would not let a gob of gel choke my own baby) for the Daktarin gel at first so he had the Nystatin drops, I had Daktarin cream and loading dose plus follow up doses of fluconazole. THREE times. By the last course of treatment DS had the Daktarin gel.
- I went on www.kellymom.com and looked at all the alternative herbal hoo ha and got just about everything. If memory serves me right: grapefruitseed tablets, acidophilus tablets, garlic tablets, grapefruitseed extract
-cut out ALL sugar from my diet, including fruit and white foods like bread, white rice, white pasta(allowed myself three prunes a day, whoop de do!)
-cut out yeast, so all breads and alcohol and alcohol free beer
-ate lots of live yoghurt
-washed all milk covered things and DS's nappies at high temp, changed bras and towels daily (chore!)
-changed to non plastic backed breastpads which definately helped, changed them often
For about a week at the start I expressed off the worst side to keep up supply.
DS had terrible thrushy nappy rash which cleared in about a week, and his mouth never got too bad. He thrived growth wise which was a big part of what kept me going, plus bf was really, truly important to me so I really wanted to struggle through but it took my absolute all at times.
In the end I went on holiday and swam in the sea every day, kept up all the herbal stuff and the no sugar/yeast and that's when it went. DS was 5 months old, but the worst of it was at the start. To get rid of the crack, which wouldn't heal due to the thrush, I used silverette nipple covers, which healed it fast (once latch was sorted)
I hope this helps, if nothing else then in an 'always someone worse than you' way!
The only thing I didn't try was gentian violet- not easy to get in the UK now and not really recommended for babies but tbh I might have given it a go.
It did go and for me it was worth it.
Best of luck.