Does a blocked duct mean nasty tasting milk?

[Surfnicky]

Ok - possibly a really silly question but...
I have a blocked duct at the moment, was very painful a day or so ago but seems to be getting better. Well, less swollen anyway. I'm doing all the recommended things to try and sort it out - combing towards the nipple, massage, ibuprofen, hot water bottle before feeds, etc etc but it doesn't seem to want to shift. I guess if I keep doing this it will go at some point but will the milk that has been blocked taste any different? I have exclusively BF twins so can't really afford to express off the potentially nasty tasting milk!

As I said, I may have totally dreamt this up but I figure that milk that sits around for a day or two isn't the best tasting?!

I've never heard of it making milk taste funny. as long as your babies are drinking it then I shouldn't worry tbh

milk that has sat in the fridge for a while can go a bit soapy because of the lipases in it breaking down. you can stop that by scalding it after you['ve expressed.
but you're better off just carrying on feeding them

Not sure about the taste, but when I finally cleared a nasty blocked duct, it came out like thin strands for a bit. DD didn't seem bothered though.

Have you tried pointing bub's chin towards the blockage? and massaging it toweards the nippl as one of your bubs feeds?

Well done on feeding twins though. How old are they?

Thanks - I did think it was probably a silly q but you never know!! Will look for thin strands! Yes, have tried chin towards blockage but it's hard to tell where it is, as a wedge of my boob feels hard, not just a little lump IYKWIM.

DTs are 24 weeks and LURVE their milk. Quite looking forward to weaning them in a couple of weeks time though, as they seem to be getting hungrier and hungrier at the moment and I am having to feed them more and more often. Will still keep on BF them though - just hopefully not every 2 hours?! (Or am I being hopelessly naive...!)

wow 24 weeks. you should be very proud of yourself

My DD cut right back on her daytime feeds after weaning and tends to have maybe two or three 10 minutre power feeds, but sstill has a long feed in the morning and at night, and sometimes late afternoon. I suppose if yoou have twins that could still add up to a LOT of feeding.

I hope you get the blockage cleared soon. I've had loads. Thankfully I'm pretty adept at recognising the signs (after several bad bouts and two lots of mastitis) so it never gets too bad these days.

It hasn't developed into mastitis has it? I never had a fever or fluey symptoms, but my boob had a wedge like you describe, and it looked like I'd been attacked with a red marker pen!

Milk that's in the breasts doesn't go 'off' - no way for it to do so unless you have porous breasts

However, milk from breasts which have mastitis may be very slightly saltier (too late to check the reference for this, but it's something to do with the slightly elevated sodium levels) - but it will not harm the baby in any way. You have a blocked duct, anyway, and not mastitis.

Check the nipple for 'white spot' - sometimes an opening of a duct closes over and gets blocked at that end and milk banks up. You have to get rid of the milk from the blocked end and when you do, it shifts the lump.

Will post more tomorrow with more detail if you need it.