thrush in nipples?

[wem]

I'm breastfeeding my 3 week old and I'm worried I might be getting thrush in my nipples. They've been painful from the start, think I had a poor latch at first that caused some damage that hasn't healed yet.

An NCT breast feeding counsellor has checked my latch and says it's fine now, and suggested expressing a couple of drops and leaving on the nipple to help heal. This seemed to help for a day or two, but now my nipples are starting to tingle and hurt after a feed, whereas they didn't before.

DD isn't showing any signs of thrush in her mouth as far as I can see, and is feeding as enthusiastically as ever.

Could the expressed bm be providing an environment for thrush? Can I treat it with anything from the pharmacist 'just in case', or do I have to wait til Monday and an appointment with my gp for a prescription?

Are you nipples cracked? try lansinoh cream - expensive but good.
It could be thrush - a lot of doctors don't even realize you can get thrush in your breast ....The breast feeding network has some excellent information which you can acesss online. I had thrush - but it was deep in my breast and caused a shooting pain. I found my female chemist far more helpful than my doctor. I would go to the doctors if it gets worse
I would get your latch rechecked as I had terrible problems even though it looked fine to one bf councellor.
I don't think the ebm would be doing any harm....great that your dd isn't suffering
Hope it all gets beter

Thanks. Cracks seem to have developed in the last week or so. I've been using Lansinoh from the start - it's been soothing but doesn't seem to help with healing.

bump. Any more thoughts? She's just come off from a feed and my nipple is very pink/whitish.

Can you go and have a chat with a nice chemist?

There are loads of symptoms of thrush and I think you can just get some and not all of them. I think I've had thrush for weeks but only just diagnosed - my DD doesn't have any sign of it. I have that horrid tingly/stabbing feeling after feeding too. Other signs are - redness of the nipple after feeding, extra sensitivity of your boobs when you go out in the cold - both of which I have but I don't think its always the case. Get it checked out with a HV or Dr who knows something about it before it gets too established. I think I've had it for weeks but just didn't realised and now I'm having trouble getting rid of it (I thought that this was the normal misery of bfing and wondered how so many people did it!)
Good luck!

Get it checked! LO has to be treated too or it is pointless treating you. hey don't always have symptoms, so will pass it back and forth. Do get it treated right away, though, it gets much harder to get rid of as time goes by. (((hugs)))

I had symptoms of thrush for 1st 6-8 weeks of bf - deep pain in breasts and through to shoulder blades towards end and after feeds, blanching of nipples and sensitivity to cold (freezer aisle of supermarkets were a nightmare!). LO didn't show any symptoms. Took 2 courses of treatment as recommended by Breastfeeding Network which GP prescribed (LO also treated) but this didn't seem to help.
Then contacted local La Leche counsellor who was really helpful (I found La Leche thrush info leaflet v useful)and eventually tried grapefruit seed extract tablets as described in LLLI leaflet and also by other MNers as I was reluctant to take another course of fluconazole. Symptoms cleared in less than a week of treatment and we've never looked back, can't say if it was definitely the GSE that did the trick, but worth a try if you are still struggling after conventional treatment.
I feel your pain (worse than childbirth IME), hope you get sorted v soon - worth persevering, bf is fab when it all goes well.

I contracted thrush after a course of antibiotics I had to take after giving birth to our DS. It started when DS was 3 weeks old and took about 8 weeks to go completely, as I didn't know what it was and GP failed to diagnose it. I had terrible pain in my nipples when latching DS on and it got worse with each new latch (he pulled off the nipple a lot at times, probably because he had a sore mouth, although there were no obvious symptoms in his mouth). It felt like feeding through broken glass and my nipples would burn and sting for quite a while after the feed. They were also incredibly sensitive to cold and any kind of touch and looked very pink/shiny with some white pimples on them. Anyway, it was only when I saw a BF counsellor that I got some help. Basically, I treated me with Daktarin cream on nipples and DS with Daktarin gel orally after every single feed. I also changed breast pads after every feed. I hot washed all laundry at 60 degrees and only used a bath towel once before washing it. I also washed and sterilised all expressing and feeding equipment after every single usage. These last steps are important, as the yeast that causes the thrush infection lives in the milk and can only be killed off by high heat. You also shouldn't freeze any breast milk that you express when you have a thrush infection for feeding at a later date, because you may end up reinfecting your baby and yourself. I also cut sweet things, bread, anything with yeast in it out of my diet so that the yeast did not have anything to feed on and ate plenty of probiotic natural yogurt and took grapefruit seed extract. Thrush is a pain to get rid of, but it can be done if you really want to and having been through those early weeks and not being able to b/f at all because it was too painful (had to express and feed all milk to baby from bottle), I managed to eradicate the thrush and return to exclusive "proper" b/f when DS reached about 10 weeks. He is now 17 weeks old, we are still b/f and enjoying it! I hope some of these tips may help and that you soon feel better x