Breastfeeding still hurting at 12 weeks

[AuntFlossy]

I'm sat here in tears and feel like jacking it all in. It's now 12 weeks down the line and no matter what I seem to do breastfeeding is still incredibly painful.

To give you some background DD had lip and tongue tie divided 3.5 weeks ago. The first week after her latch got better and better until it was mostly pain free. She then developed thrush by day 7 and feeding was suddenly agony again. Spent a week using creams for me and her from the doctor and it was no better. Thought maybe tongue tie had reattached so went to see a lactation consultant who reassured me not and suggested I get a course of thrush tablets from doctors which I've just finished. By day 2 of tablets feeding seemed much more comfortable and was for around 3 days. Yesterday it started hurting again just as I finished my 7th tablet.

LC says her latch is good. My nipples feel like they are burning when she feeds. Am I ever going to get to a point where I'm not in agony? I've spent 3 months with my shoulders up by my ears while feeding and I'm constantly tense. My health is suffering and I'm catching every bug going.

I just don't know what else to try

Poor you. This sounds awful and I can empathise. Dc2 had TT divided at just over 10 weeks after constant pain feeding since birth. Had same experience that immediately after division, the pain and latch improved 80/90% almost instantly and I thought the problem was solved. However after about a week it felt like the old latch problems returned and I could see that he wasn't opening his mouth as much and it felt like he was slipping off toward end of each feed. Often nipple was coming out compressed. I didn't go back to get this checked as I was fed up and resigned yo stopping bf by then, but very slowly ( and without me really noticing) the latch and pain slowly improved. By about 15/16 weeks I realised the pain had gone and each feed felt normal (apart from some normal soreness at the end of the day if he had been cluster feeding).

Not sure what made the difference, maybe just time and his mouth getting bigger? But just thought I'd let you know that in this instance it was about 6 weeks for the TT division to work, so if you keep going a bit longer you may find the situation improves. (Have to add that the main reason I had to plough on after 12 weeks when I really didn't want to was because DS wouldn't take a bottle, so I felt I had little other choice but to grimace and bear it). Good luck and I hope you find a solution that works for you.

Btw it's worth getting swabbed by GP to confirm if you do have thrush. Think the ABM has a good fact sheet on appropriate diagnosis and treatment - swabbing recommended to either discount or confirm thrush) . I had thrush with DC1 and to me it felt like being attacked with needles and knives during each feed, with the intense pain lasting for up to an hour afterwards. The pain I had this time round before and after TT although bad, was nothing like as horrendous as thrush. If you've got thrush I really sympathise as I've never known pain like it and it's what put paid to me trying to bf dc1 at 3 weeks.