What is causing this breastfeeding pain?

[Lovethesea]

DS is 15 days old and I am struggling badly with breastfeeding. His latch is good but I am getting a lot of pain

When I'm feeding on the left side I have sharp let down pain for a few minutes which then usually dies away. But when I feed from the right the pain is severe and constant. Every time he sucks I get shooting pain, like nerve pain, through the breast and then down my right leg and right arm. It is like someone is running an electric current through my nerves and is agony.

I'm very close to giving up now as I am dreading the next feed. I had a traumatic forceps birth and long, painful recovery with DD 19 months ago and I just don't want to end up as a pain filled mess again.

Anyone got any ideas what could be causing this leg/arm pain? The cracked and bleeding nipples have mostly healed up now but this shooting pain is excruciating.

Poor you - sounds hideous. I have had blocked ducts before which gave me shooting pains in my breasts but not down the arms and legs.

Don't give up. I'm sure it will pass soon. You just need some support. Is your Health Visitor helpful? Or try one of the support telephone lines. I contacted a private breastfeeding counsellor with my first and she was fantastic.

Could it possibly be thrush? Does your baby have any white patches in his mouth or is he fractious on the breast at all?

I have had thrush without any physical signs, just pain though - it can be a bugger to diagnose and often GPs will refuse to prescribe anything if there are not obvious signs.

Any bf experts online at the moment who could advise better?

Are you quite sure the latch is good? I thought mine was but was getting pains, then i found out it wasnt as good as it could be, plus dd had tongue tie and I got a staph aureus infection.

Painful feeding is never a good thing- does sound like a possible infection- you poor thing

I don't think it's thrush. DS has no white spots and latches on with vigour and never comes off. He's feeding away until he sleeps on the breast, about 45 minutes on average and I usually take him off in the end as he stops sucking but rarely detaches.

I had deep breast tissue thrush after DD's birth 19 months ago and that was horrendous and constant pain, like hot needles in both breasts. Even clothing touching my breasts sent more waves of pain through them. That had no outward signs and there are none this time either. I had 20 days of treatment last time - drops for DD, cream and tablets for me. Nothing shifted and I was crying all the time. I dreaded her waking to feed and was utterly miserable. I had had a traumatic forceps birth so in hindsight I think my body didn't know what to heal first. I mix fed after 4 weeks and then FF from 5 weeks and finally felt human again at 6 weeks.

I am topping up with formula at the moment after each breastfeed as DS wasn't gaining much weight at all, was crying from hunger a lot and I couldn't bear the pain as often as he needed to feed from me. I know it means my supply will be lower but I'd rather he got some breastmilk for a few weeks than all breastmilk for one week and then I stop completely and have a breakdown.

It's just this leg and arm nerve pain - so weird and I've never read of it anywhere.

The midwives have checked the latch again this week and say it's fine and he's taking lots of my areola as well as nipple. He does have a slight tongue tie apparantly but not significant enough to treat. Maybe that impacts on one side more than the other?

I really want to give him the breastmilk but earlier it got so bad I just yelled and had to break the latch and get him off asap. It really is screaming type intense pain and I am normally good at gritting my teeth but it feels like being tortured I am taking paracetemol all the time and have just run out of volterol (post c-section) so maybe that's why it's gone up a notch.

Could still be thrush without any obvious symptoms.

If you are anywhere near oxford the John Radcliff Hospital used to run a brill [free]Breastfeeding clinic-was 10 years since I went but they were great.They will def rule out any attachment issues.

Still can't believe I drove down from Cheshire but it was worth it,still remember that pain I'd rather have given birth again.Ughhhh

Best of luck

Midwife said my DD's tongue tie was only slight. Breastfeeding specialist midwife referred her anyway as was having feeding issues. Post snip feeding was much much better. Maybe worth getting it snipped anyway since it could be causing a problem?

I had very similar pain with both my dds. With dd1 I never found out what was causing it, but it did go away after a while. Was very painful though. And I saw a bf counsellor who told me it was thrush and said I should get thrush treatment, which just made dd1 vomit. So I stopped it and eventually the whole thing just sorted itself out on its own.

I had unbearable, excruciating pain with dd2, shooting through my breast, continuing for up to half an hour after feeding. It was so bad that I didn't feel able to offer that breast at all and panicked that I might have to stop bf altogether. But luckily a wonderful bf counsellor suggested that it might be a bleb, and helped me sort it out.

Have a close look at your nipples to see if there are any little white bits on them. Not like thrush - it would look as though one of the little bumps on the tip of the nipple had turned white. If so it could be a bleb - trapped dried milk. It needs to be unblocked and got out.

Also I would suggest getting a bf counsellor rather than a midwife to check the latch. In my personal experience they tend to be more reliable, and certainly part of the problem with dd2 was a dodgy latch, though I hadn't realised. This was despite having fed dd1 till she was 22 months old, so I had thought I knew what I was doing.

Lovethesea, sorry to hear you are struggling.

Dd1 had a tongue tie, described as slight, but it definitely cause huge amounts of pain, and was the reason why she couldn't stay latched on properly for more than a few seconds.

Different mw came out today and said she thought she could see thrush in DS's mouth - tongue and cheeks. Bit of a shock given the other mw said a definite no when she checked his mouth a couple of days ago. Pain is my only sign.

Got sent to the out of hours GP who has given drops for DS, cream for me and told me not to bf for 14 days to clear the infection

GP said I should ff or express only. Last time I had tablets too but she said I don't need those and she said in her experience people feeding through it just couldn't shift it.

So now I'm really confused. I did bf through it last time and 20 days of cream, drops and tablets didn't lessen the pain at all. But if I express will I be able to do so for 14 days without losing supply?

Also spoke to bf counsellor who was great; she wants his tongue tie checked by an expert in case the nerve pain is partly DS's latch with the tie. Have someone else to call in the morning. This is all exhausting!

Have you had a look at your breast in the mirror? Does it have any read patches?

I recently had the same symptoms and it was an inflammation. I had to express after a feed and use hot compress before expressing and a cold compress after expressing. The pain went away within a day.

Lovethesea - Dd1 and I had thrush (as well as all the other things - these things always pile on don't they!), It was very clear on dd1's tongue, but I couldn't see anything on my nipples, although they were so mangled I'm not sure I would have noticed.

I managed to express for several weeks, because I just couldn't bear dd going anywhere near them (although I wasn't advised to stop putting her to the breast), BUT it also really hurt for me to express (other problems) and I found it exhausting to express enough to keep supply up, and I only had one dc, I didn't manage to do it when I had problems with dd2.

Glad you are seeing someone else today - you are doing an amazing job.

Lovethesea - my DS had a partial tonguetie - so partial that 3MWs missed it by just looking, twas the BFing expert who found it. The visiting MW agreed that it needed to be dealt with and referred me to the Paed - he was lovely but said as it was so slight, snipping it might make no difference but he would do it anyway if I wanted. I did, he did it and the difference was immense. No more feeling like he was sucking razor blades through my nipples (what it felt like before).

THe Paed did say it varied - that major tongue ties had been snipped but with no improvement, and that minor ones, that didn't look as though they could possibly cause a problem, had been snipped and had massive improvements.

So - do get the tonguetie checked and even if it is slight, having it snipped could make all the difference. It didn't hurt DS at all - not even a whimper - he fed straight afterwards with no problem, and there was no after-effect either.

Thanks again - off to hosptial's special problem bf clinic this morning. Have been told on the phone that the GP's drugs won't work so no point in taking them.

I'll get an assessment of the issues and then make a plan. I did use a handpump last night twice to cope with the swelling but would have to get an electric one for any length of time.

So, my trips out post elcs so far have been to the GP (rash on DS limbs), to out of hours GP (DS thrush) and now bf clinic ....

well if it makes you feel any better, my first several trips were to the Anti-coagulation clinic at the hospital, to be stabbed every 3 days or so (then weekly) because I was on warfarin.