Nipple bulge - what is this? And oversupply advice please.

[BFdoesnotequalBFF]

I'm having a tough time BF. I plan to stick it out, but any advice would be appreciated. Nearly every feed is very painful in my nipples, and letdown is horrible. Ongoing pain between feeds has waned a little, but comes back every now and then, like stinging behind the areola.

I have a bulge where my nipple meets the areola on one breast. It's like the connecting tissue has given way, and one of the milk ducts is bulging out. The skin is not broken. It's much worse when I'm engorged. What could this be? How do I get it to heal?

My LO is now 9 weeks old, and we're still battling oversupply. I'm block feeding, but still getting really engorged. LO has a shallow latch on most feeds, despite my best efforts to get him positioned right, as it's just not possible to suck in enough when my breasts are so swollen. Even when we get down to softer breasts on the last feed in a block, there's a lot of nipple pain. And I'm not getting to soft breasts before having to switch, as the other side is painfully swollen.

Oh - And I now have blocked ducts on one side again! So trying to balance block feeding for oversupply with appropriate emptying for blocked ducts. :(

We've an appointment with an ENT specialist this week, to check for possible tongue tie. If there is any, it must be posterior, as there's nothing classic.

Any tips for me would be very gratefully appreciated!

Sorry no one has replied so far - I'm replying mostly to bump this so someone else comes along and offers better advice!

Have you spoken to anyone like the La Leche League, the National Breastfeeding Helpline and so on? They might have some ideas. Although you probably have already tried them.

Hope it gets better soon.

Thanks ExBB. I'm not in the UK and the LLL is really weak here. They have a FB group, but not much else. I've been to see BF advisors through the health system, but they are overloaded and dont seem to have any more advice for me.

Still hoping someone here has some tips... ?

is this any help?

Not sure about the swollen aereola I'm afraid but it could be that the poor latch is what is causing it.

Regarding the engorgenent - it can take upto 3 months for milk supply to settle down but in the meantime here are some tips to help:

Best to feed on demand - don't worry if its just been 5 mins since the last feed, put baby to boob whenever he starts rooting or looks like he needs milk

If oversupply is really bad then sometimes it helps to latch baby on until you feel your milk let down, then detach baby & let the initial bout of milk down into a muslin & then reattach once the flow has slowed down slightly.

Feed from both boobs at each feed - so feed from left (say) then offer right (once baby has finished left)

If I think of anything else ill let you know. You do really need someone to check your latch though - even tongue tie babies can latch on (might require a bit of fine tuning though).

is this what you mean?

Thanks Mog. Unfortunately, none of that matches what I have. It seems (not that I've ever seen one) to be more like a mini hernia, not a pimple. Imagine a little pea underneath the skin, right where the nipple meets the areola. It bulges out when I'm engorged, but is soft if you poke it. Nothing I've read online seems to describe this (and I've read a lot of sites on BF lately!)

Everything else I've read about oversupply says to stick to one side each feed, or even several feeds in a row, before going to the other again. You suggest feeding from both sides each time. Have you had experience with this helping ongoing oversupply? Or are you thinking of managing initial engorgement - when a LO is 3-5 days old?

Probably not as bad as yours but I did have oversupply when dd was younger & I just did both boobs at each feed (sometimes dd would take both sometimes one) until it settled down around 3 months. I do still have oversupply at 10 months (the boob that I'm not feeding from will leak milk at feeding times) but its nowhere neat as bad as it used to be.

I'm no expert but it does suggest to me that your boobs are oversupp

Sorry! Got sidetracked by dd!

Ok yes as I said I offered both boobs at every feed until dd was about 5-6 months old. At that point I switched to just offering 1 boob (was starting to wean by that point so dd didn't need so much).

Sorry you might already have done this, but have you tried hand expressing a little just to ease the engorgenent before a feed so dd can latch on? Also raw cabbage leaves in your bra can help. I don't know if you have these where you are but Breast Shells can also help the nipple protrude.

I'm reading a leaflet on issues with engorgement from LLL & it does say the suggestions to relieve engorgement are the same for engorgement post-birth & engorgement at a later date.