Agonising but short lived pains after feeding - refill?

[HeldTogetherByGafferTape]

LO is 5 weeks old, and is a mixture of fed on the breast, and feed expressed milk from a bottle.

About 10 mins like clockwork after either feeding or expressing I get awful pains high and deep in my breasts. They are short lived, lasting only about 5mins, but they have me moaning out loud and deep breathing/gasping until they pass. This has been happening for about a week now.

I don't think it's thrush - my nipples are not sore or itchy, the pains are high up the breasts where I imagine the ducts lie, and the baby has no white patches or symptoms.

I'm not sure it it's a vasospasm, but my nipples are not changing colour at all.

I'm wondering if it's simply pain related to the mechanics of the emptier ducts starting to fill up again?

Has anyone had pain on refilling at all?

Oh - I should have said - no symptoms of mastitis either. Breasts are not hot, and no red patches or swellings.

Yes but not for 5 minutes! More a sharp, downwards pain deep in the tissue if that makes sense? Have you got access to a BF councillor?

Hi Hasta

How long are your pains lasting? The type of pain sounds similar. If my breasts were clock faces the pains are between 10 and 2 quite deep down and shabby.

No BF counsellor . I might try and go to a support group, but not before next next week now as they are on Wednesdays.

Sounds like letdown to me. Can be dreadful.

Thanks Elspeth. Do you know can the letdown pains start 10 mins after feeding or expressing has finished? I can feed or express happily for 20 mins relatively pain free, it's about 10 mins after I stop that it all kicks off.

I had this, it was thrush and the other symptoms came later. It was awful- my boobs felt like they were refilling with boiling water. It was after ds had finished feeding.

Thanks Nicky.

Hmmm. Maybe I should get treated for thrush and see if it helps. I can't get a Docs app until next Tuesday though. Have tried taking paracetamol 15 mins before a feed, but it doesn't even touch the sides.

I had this too and it was blocked ducts- felt like ds was literally clawing the milk out of me and then the after pains were like as pp said, refilling with boiling water. Agonising.
Keep feeding if you can bear it, but definitely see your breastfeeding counsellor or health visitor. I was recommended to put hot flannels on after feeding but this didn't really help as it stimulates milk.
The kellymom website is really helpful too.

Oh and another tip is to check for tongue tie and adjust your position. It was so painful that I was sort of feeding all hunched up and holding him too high. When I held him lower it eased the pain somewhat.

Sounds like refil but could be thrush so worth getting that checked out. Unfortunately refill pains are something that they conveniently forget to tell you about when pregnant

The pain was only for about 20 seconds! It stopped completely when the DC were around 12 months but became more sporadic when my milk was fully in and I was feeding them on demand. Sorry to be of little help!

toast - yes...there seems to be a few things that fall under that category.

bear yes I could liken this to breasts filling with boiling water. When I look down at them as it's happening I can't believe they're not hissing, quivering and melting. I have the 6 week check next week. Maybe I can ask to be referred to a counsellor to check the latch then.

pasta it actually seems to have got worse as my milk has come fully in. I can't really imagine 12 months of this... but then I couldn't imagine 9 months without wine and yet here we are.

If it was tt or latch you'd likely have pain during feeding, not afterwards. But always worth checking.

And it will ease - one day you'll realise that you've been feeding pain free! I promise !

Yeh during feeding we are pretty much mostly OK thankfully. A little bit of painful nipple tugging and rubbing sometimes, but I can sort that out with a little bit of manoeuvring of LOs mouth/latch.

I did have lots of trouble at the start with bleeding nipples as the latch was wrong, so spent some dedicated time trying to get it right. The midwife was happy with it, though that was about 3-4 weeks ago when she was last in.

It's about 10 mins after we stop that the pain kicks in, and it always stops again too. I just have to ride it out for a while, but it renders me pretty useless for the duration of it.