Completely blocked breast: Abscess or Mastitis or what?

[MollyDefoe]

On Friday, I woke up with my left breast hard and hot and swollen and very painful. I had a soaring fever, chills, sweats, headache, nausea. GP prescribed me antibiotics, which did nothing. Yesterday morning my OH took me to A&E, where I was admitted and put on IV antibiotics. I'm feeling basically back to rights, but my poorly breast has stopped producing any milk at all - it feels completely engorged, but i cant get anything out of it by expressing, and very little by bf my newborn daughter. All that comes out are these few horrible stringy bits of what looks like gone-off or curdled milk (grim - no wonder LO doesn't want any of it!). The weird thing is, there doesn't seem to be any discernible lump in the breast that would suggest an abscess - the doctors here are a bit confused, but dont seem to care very much about whether I'll be able to breastfeed again (they're only bothered about curing the infection). Has anyone had anything similar? I feel so sad - I have inverted nipples and getting DD to latch on has been so hard, but we were finally getting somewhere and then this happened :-(
I'd be so grateful for any advice or support

Sympathies, I hope you get this sorted soon, and that you can get breastfeeding going again. Often women are able to feed from just one side (e.g. mothers of twins) so if necessary, this might be an option for you?

I wanted to share this page on mastitis/blocked ducts on Kellymom. The thing you said about stringy bits of milk rang a bell - it's mentioned on that page as a potential symptom. You could see if the hospital has an infant feeding coordinator you could talk to, or ring one of the helplines. I don't think BFCs will be able to help with the medical side of it, but might be able to give you suggestions you could try given what your doctors have said.

Molly - so sorry you are going through this so soon after your baby's been born Are you on the Mat. ward with DD? You can ask to be moved if you are not as the MWs/IFCs on a Mat ward will be more familiar with dealing with mastitis and newborns than a general medical dr.

The stringy cheese you are describing is normal for mastitis/plugged ducts and getting it out is a really good thing so def. keep expressing to get as much out as possible - it's actually okay for baby to drink this though some babies object to the taste (milk from a breast with mastitis has a higher sodium level so will taste salty).

Have you been shown to hand express yet - that may help you get more out in esp. if you try in the shower (you can use the shower head to gently massage your breasts to help stimulate a let down too).

Basically though as well as anti-biotics you need to keep the milk flowing (curdled looking though it may be) as if you stop now it may progress from mastitis to an abscess which you really don't want!

Kellymom.com has lots of info on mastitis/plugged ducts here.

Hope you get some rest and start feeling better soon.

Thank you so much for your advice Red and Truth. It's good to know that, however disgusting, getting those stringy bits of milk out is helping. I'm doing a bit of handexpressing, which is good at getting milk out, but gets tiring after a while, so I'm mainly pumping.

LO is two-and-a-half weeks old, so I wasnt allowed to stay on the maternity unit. They've forbidden her to stay on this ward, but the nurses have been really lovely and put me in a private room so that I can express stringy milk for hours at a time without embarrassment (!), and so that she's able to visit without risk of infection from other patients.

Tomorrow I'm having an ultrasound scan to see if I've got an abscess, and if so then it'll be drained. Otherwise I think I'll be able to go home. But Im so worried about whether this breast is ever going to produce milk again. A doctor today suggested that it might not - "at least, not for this child" - which has really upset me. But I saw a wonderful lactation consultant in the maternity ward after LO's birth - so I think I'll ask to see her again tomorrow and get some more advice.

Thanks so much for the advice, support and encouragement!