Could this be mastitis? :(

[creamoftomato]

Woe is me.

Exclusively breastfed 5 month old here and I've been feeling pretty unwell since late last night - shivery, a bit achey, scratchy throat and v nauseous. My temperature went up to 38.5 this morning but dropped an hour later and is hovering in the mid to high 37s now. I'm sort of feeling a bit better and then crap again in cycles.

Also I have one v tender boob - it doesn't have any obvious lumps or red marks at all, just feels sort of bruised and sore.

I'm following kellymom advice for now (hot compresses, feeding a lot, resting, ibuprofen, cold compresses between feeds, a bit of hand expressing...) and baby is happy enough (though he was v fussy this morning and it took him ages to settle to a couple of feeds). The expressed milk looks and tastes normal () though possibly slightly less sweet from the sore boob (could be my imagination).

So does this sound like mastitis or the beginnings of? Or could it be something else with coincidental sore boob?

Haven't yet rung out of hours (why always a Saturday!) because I'm fairly certain they'll advise going in to get antibiotics and I'm not feeling very up to getting out of bed (it's a fair old walk and bus ride away) and prefer to avoid antib if I can...

Any thoughts? Wait and see?

If it was me, I'd wait. But only because I've had mastitis 4 times and after the thrush I had following my first course of ABs I've refused to take them ever since! I cleared mine with ibuprofen and massage/feeding/hand expressing.

Hope it clears quickly for you.

Poor you, sounds nasty.

I've had mastitis and I felt shivery and achy. It felt like flu. And I had a red patch and tender boob. I followed GP's advice - fed through it and took the antibiotics and it cleared up very quickly. Good luck xxx

Most mastitis is non infectious, yours will almost certainly have started this way. To ease flu symptoms (actually an immune response to your own leaking milk proteins) you need to feed,pump,resolve blockages and milk blisters. Do it in time and it never becomes infectious. If self help stops working and your flu type symptoms increase you need abs urgently. Abs are massively over prescribed for non infectious mastitis but very needed once infection has developed.