giving up, not bf'd for 24 hours, huge boobies and scared of mastitis..

[alright]

have been giving up slowly, cut the day feeds, then yesterday cut the two night feeds, very full this morning, expressed a bit. where does the milk in my boobs go?

It does get absorbed back into your system, but you may have taken things a bit quickly cutting out two night feeds in one go. As long as you are aware of the risk of mastitis, you can deal with it - cabbage, leaves, maximum dose of ibuprofen, then lots of expressing from the affected side.

Sorry, that should have read, "I think" at the end. I'm no expert, and only had mastitis when feeding, so was able to clear it by using the dss to feed away the pain, after ibuprofen.

Hopefully someone else will come along with good advice too, soon.

it was mostly one feed night, occasionally two. ooooooooooooo i dont want mastitis again!! someone suggested epsom salts is that rubbish?

Never heard of epsom salts, but I would be very surprised if they helped.

Mastitis as I understand it, is the inflammation of the tubes through which the milk flows. They become inflamed/sore, and this can block the flow of milk. If untreated infection can then set in, requiring antibiotics. However, if you take maximum dose of ipuprofen at the first twinges of pain - usually a needle like hot pain - then the inflamation is reduced and you get your little one to feed like mad from the sore boob, clearing all of the milk out, and also making it unlikely that you need antibiotics. (Very annoying that some doctors don't know this and give them at the first signs of pain.)

I had it several times when my dss changed their feeding patterns. I too was terrified it would set in when we finally gave up feeding, as you can't then use the little one to clear the milk for you, but after reassurance on here, and a reminder that savoy cabbage leaves placed inside the bra really do help to sooth sore boobs, we got to the end of the day and the milk simply dissipated.

Do hope that that works for you. Go buy some cabbage. Best of luck

Sorry, I should have emphasises that full boobs does not mean that you will automatically get mastitis.

How old is your little one?

I found expressing while in a nice warm shower - just enough to errr.. ummm... 'deflate/de-fuse' overloaded boobs helped. (By hand or with hand-held expresser). Seem to remember spending quite a lot of time in the shower over several days!

Good luck - another vote for ibuprofen too.

7 months old.

Sorry went away. How are you feeling now?