Help! Mastitus for the 1st time

[thatsnotmymonkey]

I have Mastitus. I have been BF my 14m old morning and night only, for about 3 months. I am very run down, my DS has bacterial conjunctivitis in both eyes, so I think he has given me a bacterial infection. Dr was great, gave me some antibiotics, but did scare me a bit saying about if I deteriorate I may have to go to the hospital. Is this common? I have a fever of 39.5, chills, flu like symptoms. I cannot imaging feeling worse! When should I start feeling better? When should I call out of hours?

Any other advice greatly appreciated.

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/pdfs/BFN_Mastitis.pdf

How are you feeling today? When I had mastitis a few weeks ago and also felt as bad as I could imagine possible - antib's kicked in within 48 hours though!

Apparently in the olden days they used to call it 'milk fever' which is a much better description imo.

Hope you feel better soon!

I haven't checked the BFN site on mastitis, I'm sure it's good. But I would stress feeding with the chin to the lump. I think hospitalisation is rare with mastitis.

Thanks for all your input. I feel much better today, thank you. The drugs have definitely kicked in and now although I feel a bit wobbly, no fever and chills with just a hard breast. Had a bath, hot flannel on said breast and have been feeding from it.

Should I express from it?

I don't want to start increasing my supply unless I have to as I mentioned in my OP, I only feed DS morning and night. Have given him a feed after lunch today, but just from the sore side and massaged it while doing so.

My breast is still really sore and hard. Is this normal?

bump,anyone? I am a bit scared.

Is your fever back? Have you been feeding from that breast?

Not your personally of course but your baby.

yes, been feeding from that breast, massaging it whilst doing it. I cant't be sure, but I didn't feel like DS wasgetting much from it at bed time,but it did feel like it at about 4ish.
Fever is back a bit....not as high as yesterday.Fuck.
Should I pump?

Thanks for replying

called NHS direct, have had some of my fears allayed. Feeling worse. Fever is at 39.1

Take ibuprofen. It is recommended by the NHS and worked for me.

Thanks,took some about 2 hours ago. Hasn't really touched the sides. Will take a couple more before bed.

poor you. i had mastitus a few weeks ago, strangley enough while DS had conjunctivitus.

does ibruprofen lower a temp? i took 1 paracetamol and 1 ibruprofen together.

hope youre better soon

if you can position your baby with chin pointing to the lump whilst feeding this is supposed to help too I'm told.

Also whilst in a hot shower try to massage the lump towards the nipple.

How are you feeling now?

Had a raging fever again last night which broke at 3am! Feeling very weak today still and breast is sore and hard and red yet. Thing I will go back and see my GP tomorrow

please dont worry!! i had mastitis twice before my daughter was 3 weeks old :P both times i felt just like you...really bad fever to begin with, like horrible flu, and even though i got antibiotics as quickly as possible it took at least 24 hours for the fever to start going down, and for at least 3 or 4 days i was still in bed.

your breast will be red hot and lumpy - you have to keep on feeding from it, and try to massage the lumps while baby is feeding. you can pump too...what i did was try to pump until it felt as empty as possible, and then gave a the bottle of ebm to dh to feed baby while i went back to sleep! that way you can work at getting out as much as pos, as well as massaging lumps out.
at other times, express just enough for some relief -it should affect your milk supply very much.

just stay in bed as much as pos, to sleep it off. if you are on antibiotics, and you caught it in the early stages then you wont have to be hospitalised (that only happens when mastitis is undiagnosed for too long)

i hope you feel better soon!

oops...i meant to say pumping shouldnt affect your milk supply very much!

Thank you for your advice curlimum, I think I will pump in a minute. I don't want my DS to get into the habit of feeding alot through the day as I work 4 days a week.

Your post has made me feel better, thanks. I am so weak and tearful about it all. A big drip, really!

Any let up?

It is improving! Thank God, I felt so horrendous yesterday. Didn't have the best nights sleep, but am going to bed in 5 minutes. Lump is diminishing, although still there a bit. Think I am through the worst of it, I just need to keep on with the antibiotics.

Thanks everyone for all your support.

good to hear you are feeling better