Confused!! Did I have mastitis or did I catch a chill?

[Peridotty]

Hi! Yesterday I went out for a walk in the cold and when I came back, I suddenly felt really unwell. My right boob was tender to press on. It felt like it was bruised and it was kind of lumpy. I suddenly developed a fever of 38C, was cold and couldn’t warm up, headache, chills, no appetite. I thought oh no, did I have the coronavirus but it came on immediately after I got back in from the cold. I fed my baby on the sore boob to empty it. I took paracetamol and ibuprofen. I then slept for 2 hours. When I woke up, I had no fever or any other symptoms. My boob was not sore either.
What just happened? Did I catch a chill or was it mastitis?

I think I had very "mild" mastitis with my first baby when she was around 3 weeks' old. It came on suddenly and disappeared after about 24 hours. I never needed to take antibiotics and managed with paracetamol...

So yes I think it's perfectly possible!

Get better and rest up.

PS I had "proper" mastitis with my second baby. I started off with the same relatively mild symptoms (a chill and some pain) which didn't improve after 24-48 hours, following which I developed a fever. So I then did get antibiotics from the GP, which fixed it.

What do you mean catch a chill? You can't get a temperature from getting cold. If you had a high fever then you had an infection of some kind, and mastitis sounds the most plausible.

Thanks for your replies! My milk supply seems to have dropped massively . hope It comes back soon.

Sounds like classic mastitis to me. Glad it seemed to be a mild case.

What does 'catch a chill' even mean, biologically speaking? If you contracted a flu virus you'd probably still be feeling ill. I don't think that you can develop a fever just from being out in the cold. A fever is your body's response to an infection, bacterial or viral.

Probably mild mastits - if you catch it early and feed feed feed it can go away without antibiotics. In fact infection is a later symptom, you still get the symptoms of fever etc. with 'non infected' mastits (early stage) as the swelling in the breast forces tiny amounts of milk back into your bloodstream which is why your immune system starts attacking it as an illness.