Breast abscess

[mindutopia]

I think I have one. Can you tell me about your experiences with them?

I’ve just recently stopped bf my 15 month old. Last feed was 10 days ago. I thought I did everything right. Slowly cut down to only one feed a day and then one every other day then the past couple weeks was only one feed every 4-5 days. I don’t think it’s mastitis (I’ve had that twice before and the redness and soreness was much more diffuse). This is like a red lumpy boil.

NHS direct says I’ll need antibiotics and drainage. I’m going abroad on holiday on Thursday!! Have a GP appointment this morning but would be helpful to know your experiences and anything that helped.

I’ve had 2 - one in my breast and one on the skin on my breast. They’re horrible things you have my sympathy.

3 courses of antibiotics got rid of the first one. The second one was drained after antibiotics didn’t work. It was drained under local anaesthetic as I was 34 weeks pregnant at the tome. I then had to have the dressing changed daily for 10 days afterward and it took 2-3 weeks to heal completely.

Hopefully you can get some antibiotics from your GP today and these should have started working by the time you go on holiday. I found that although antibiotics ultimately didn’t clear up the second abscess, I did notice a quick improvement once I started taking them.

Going bra-less helped with the pain until the antibiotics started working. I could only take paracetamol as I was pregnant but you should be able to have stronger pain relief

Oh no, sorry to hear it. Mine was excruciatingly painful. I had it aspirated by needle approx 6 times over a 2 week period, plus iv antibiotics in hospital for a couple of days then oral when I got home again. Get it checked ASAP, GP may not be certain so if possible you need to see a breast surgeon or have a scan (can't remember the right term for the type of scan!). If it is an abscess you may need to consider cancelling the holiday. Best of luck and I hope it is not an abscess.

Thanks. She wasn't entirely sure what it was. She said it's entirely possible it's superficial and just a skin infection, but she could feel something under the surface so she couldn't say for certain. I did have a blocked duct in the exact same spot a few months ago when I started to cut down feeds. As I've only just stopped 10 days ago, it would make sense that it might pop up again now.

She gave me a 7 day course of antibiotics, but said to come back if that didn't help. I may see if my ds will feed later. I really don't want to just keep feeding him for my comfort as I have really no supply now and he just seems to get frustrated and bite! If I can just feel fine and get through my holiday. It's only 3 days, but it's the first holiday I'll have had in 2+ years and I've been planning this a long time. It seems just my luck!

Good luck, and hope the antibiotics help. With mine I had a very large red and painful swelling across about 1/3 of the breast. sounds like yours is perhaps less extreme, so hopefully antibiotics will do the trick? First doctor treated for mastitis but it then developed into an abscess, so just keep an eye on it. Are you holidaying in the UK? If not, perhaps find info on emergency care just in case. I used 111 in the middle of the night at one point.