Is it mastitis?

[Coleman93]

Woke last night with awful pain in my left boob, has been painful since and developed a red patch but no lump. Very painful to feed on (although I am continuing to feed).
I’ve been tired and very achey all day too.
No fever or chills. No hard lump or wedge.

Could it be mastitis? Or a blocked duct? I first thought blocked duct but now I’ve been aching all day I thought maybe it’s developed into mastitis? But I’ve got no fever or chills and whenever I hear other people talk about mastitis it sounds worse than I am right now?

Get it checked ASAP. I had the same symptoms and ignored it and then I got so inflamed and engorged it was really hard to feed. A breastfeeding counsellor spent an hour just gently massaging the lumpy area with her knuckles and that really helped. While she was doing that I got the rigours (sp?) with chills, shaking etc. I needed strong antibiotics to sort it out. Keep feeding if you can in the meantime.

It can develop really suddenly and go from just being a bit sore to being really quite ill, it'll be a lot easier to manage if you get checked out now rather than later.

Get that checked fast. From experience it's astonishing how quickly mastitis can take hold. I went from feeling a bit off to horrible flu feelings within about 30 minutes. Luckily I recognised what it was and got antibiotics the same day. I didn't need to stop feeding. If it develops into an abcess you do need to stop feeding.

I didn't get it checked and I ended up in hospital when DD was about 8 weeks old having an abscess in my left breast drained.

Thank you all

I managed to speak with a nurse at thr GPS today who prescribed anti biotics without seeing me and I’m already starting to feel better.

Always good to be aware of first signs of mastitis-

• Feel a hard sore lump in your breast.
• Feel that the skin on your breast is warmer to the touch.
• Feel achy and run down.
• Feel feverish with a temperature.
• Notice areas that have changed in appearance, which might show as redness or darkening on your skin tone. Colour changes in your breast may be harder to notice in darker skin tones.

By the way there is a new protocol on treatment 9no more digging your knuckles in)!

The key differences are that it cautions against using massage any stronger than gentle stoking, or use of any object, such as an electric toothbrush, for massage, to avoid tissue damage that could exacerbate the inflammation. It also cautions against attempting to "drain" the affected breast completely or feeding/expressing from it more than is necessary for comfort and to feed the baby, in order to avoid stimulating overproduction. It suggests feeding from the affected breast second (where the current advice suggests first) in order to help down regulate milk production on the affected side.

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