Is this mastitis?

[aimingtobeaperfectionist]

I've been ebf DD for nearly 6 months and since the initial hard start have ha no problems. This morning when I woke up my left boob was very engorged (usual for me as baby sleeps through night) so I fed her but then noticed the underside of my boob was very sore. It has gradually got more and more painful so now it hurts when I touch it, breathe, move etc. There is no redness I can see, so hard areas and I'm not feeling fluish. Is it the start of mastitis? or just one of those things?
Thanks.

Bump

It might be but might just be a blocked duct at this stage, I've had mastitis 3 times so far with ds2 (now 6mo) and each time the fluey symptoms have started pretty quickly after noticing that the breast was sore, I didn't get any redness initially.

If I were you I would feed lots on that side massaging the bit that hurts while you do and if it doesn't start to get better today or you get any flu like symptoms go to your gp. The kellymom website has some excellent advice on mastitis/blocked ducts etc.

That's great thank you. Can I just ask, did you find your supply in that breast increased as you were feeding more from it?

Could be - its how it started both times for me, but then I quickly began to feel very ill.

My DS started to refuse to feed on the affected side (apparently the milk can taste a bit funny) so I expressed in a hot bath, which helped a lot.

I did need antibiotics once, but the second time I was quicker to start addressing the problem and so even though I had the flu-ey symptoms I didn't need them (went away quicker).

No affect on my supply, btw.

No affect on my supply either - it does hurt quite a lot to feed on the affected side though but best thing you can do (or expressing but I found that more painful and less effective)

Apart from feeding/expressing, is there anything else I should be doing? It did actually hurt feeding her this morning, I just didn't think much of it at the time

You could always use the good old chilled, bruised cabbage leaves! Lots of my friends (not British) swear by them.