very painful breast, help

[familyfun]

dd is 6 months and feeds 4 times a day, last few days she has missed a few feeds, like yesterday she fell asleep after bath and didnt feed so went from 3pm till 6am this morning.
she has fed 4 times today as normal but noticed my right breast felt heavy/achy.
last feed was rght breast and as she fed boob didnt seem to empty, now it is very painful, seems empty but there is a solid ridge from my nipple to chest bone about an inch wide.
had hot bath it hasnt helped.
tried to express but cant.
had a blockage when she was tiny and was told to grip around boob and push backwards iyswim and then express to clear and it worked but cant do it now, its too solid and painful.

what do i do?

Do you feel feverish at all? Ill? If so get to the docs asap tomo.

When I had something similar, I took paracetomol, and used a cold compress between feeds and warm compresses during a feed (nappy filled with warm water works well). I also combed over the hard area with my fingers toward the nipple as DS fed.

You need to get your DD feeding to clear this. Can you dream feed her at least?

Also taking a hot shower, and combing with fingers as above while hand expressing helped.

In the end, feeding ds loads was what cleared things up for me.

speak to MW/ see doctor m ay need antibiots. keep gently trying to express, stand in shower/ look at baby pics etc etc try to get let down reflex happening, feed off one side for time being
I had similar with my dd had an infected nipple OUCH but one day of antibiots knocked it right out. good luck !

no she never wants a feed till 6am.
she has just fed off it before bed and it hasnt helped.
im not feverish but have felt ill for days, sick and headachy and weak, is that linked?
will try pressing the area. have hot flannel at moment.
thanks

so in morning she should feed off other side as thtat one will be full, do i just feed her on sore side till it clears?

gently try sore side, dont worry if too sore, just get emergency docs apt (dont panic its only a wee bit of mastitis) feed off one side if you need to

my mum was fond of telling me her mother fed her off one side for 2 weeks as they didnt have antibiots in those days and all was fine, boobs are remarkable I didnt feed off my poorly one for 3/4 days then it just refilled when I needed it, just did a couple of extra feeding bits from it to encourage supply

*nb do not let bossy receptionist at docs fob you off you must be seen tomorrow as you are feeding a newborn

opops 6mth old! bit bigger than a newborn....

thanks

yes she is a lot bigger than a newborn

it's horrid when it's happening to you as you feel so responsible and under pressure but doctor will see you right. try get good night sleep, plenty of fluids etc etc and maybe even glass of !!

.....old wives tale is the cabbage leaves thingie. like the earlier advice of a warm soaked nappy (water not wee) .....

wish Id thought of that.

I had that and I think it was a blocked duct rather than mastitis (in my case). The tube was the milk duct full of milk. I massaged it and put warm flannels on it. DD was awake so I had her feed from that breast but at a different angle if you know what I mean. It went down by the morning. If you can have another go at expressing - might even be worth trying to give DD a dream feed? See if she'll suck whilst asleep?
Hope it feels better soon.

this worked for me. No amount of massaging/expressing/feeding had helped beforehand. I found the blockage in the shower, squeezed it out, then got out & fed (you could express instead if dc won't feed til the morning). All sorted, relief was amazing. Good luck :)

If it becomes infected mastitis you can start feeling really poorly pretty quickly, I've had it twice in the last 7 months. Antibiotics work really quickly so don't hesitate to get to the gp. Also if it is infected and goes untreated I think (don't quote me!) it can cause cysts which are much harder to treat. I have managed to unblock ducts myself by getting in a warm bath, pressing down hard until I feel a lump then pressing down really hard, normally this resulted in milk squirting across the room. Careful though as I have heard this can push the blockage further in making things worse. And as others have said feed off the blocked side as much as possible. Hope it gets better soon, it really is painful, you have my sympathy!

Don't push the blocked bit down - you want to comb it firmly toward the nipple so you're encouraging everything to flow that way and clear. Do try paracetomol too (not ibuprofen) to help.

In morning, feed off the sore side. It might not flow at first but get her to keep trying. If she does feed then express the side that's ok so you don't get blocked on that side too.

thank you all so much for posting.
i didnt wake dd, i fed her off the sore side in the morning which was very painful but i kept massaging towards to nipple as she fed and she put her little hand on the sore bit like she was helping , i encouraged her to feed and feed and the hard bit went right down just leaving a little sore bit.
i spoke to a breast buddy and they advised massage, hot baths and feed feed feed.
had no temp so didnt go to docs first thing and byt the night the breast was back to normal so wasnt mastitus, just a blocked duct that could have got infected if i hadnt all your help so thank you so much

hmmsleep it can cause worse than cysts, I ended up with an abscess because A&E prescribed the wrong antibiotic to treat mastitus. Not pleasant.

Glad it was something easy to fix. Thanks for letting us know!