Hi everyone, am looking for advice from the wise! Basically the title says it all.
I have EBF for 6 months (DD won't take to bottle, she has gone from screaming at it instantly to playing with it and never settling to it and then screaming!). I do not express as she would not take my milk from bottle and I never really got on with the rhythm of expressing and feeding.
I have a very sore right boob, hurts generally (bruised feeling) esp on right hand side of it, it feels like it might explode despite having fed from it throughout the day and I ache in my joints, feel tired and fluey. I am getting pains in it that are stabbing and increase after a feed.
So, self diagnosis says mastitis to me, but how do I know if infected and need antibiotics?
I did have some blood from my nipple last weekend but I thought that this was just that it might be a bit cracked after enthusiatic tugging from DD. This cleared up after a day or two.
Any advice and can anyone let me know whether this means the end of BF if it is infected as although I am looking to wind it up over a period of time as I think that this is the only way I can gently get DD to take bottle, I don't know what I would do if I had to stop dead...
Any suggestions, advice and help greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.