Treating oral thrush in newborn - no medicine available anywhere

[Shann111]

First time mum here in the UK. My little girl is 2 weeks and 2 days old and has had oral thrush and a nappy rash for a few days now. GP prescribed Nystatin, but its literally out of stock everywhere and looks like the manufacturer has discontinued it. We can't give her the gel as there's a choking hazard risk, and I'm not risking that.

We have got a prescribed cream for the nappy rash so that should hopefully clear up soon.

She is still feeding fine from the bottle (I've paused direct breastfeeding to prevent a cycle of passing infections between us), but she is a bit more agitated than usual when she's awake, which I obviously find really upsetting as I hate the thought of her being in pain.

Has anyone had any luck treating baby's oral thrush with any home remedies or any other medicines other than Nystatin and the gel? I'm at my wits end with the GP and pharmacists, and quite frankly disgusted that they don't seem to have any other treatments available for such a common issue with newborns!

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

Chemist 4 U have Nystatin, I've never used them but a friend has in a similar circumstance. chemist-4-u.com/consultations/oral-thrush-treatment?msclkid=ce461d9427a11dbf50ac75b23f9f90dd&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Retail %7C Bing %7C Shopping %7C Catch All&utmterm=2331102090295269&utmcontent=All

My baby has had oral thrush for 8 weeks now! She did 4 weeks of nystatin and 2 week of fluconazole and nothing has worked.
it’s the gel that is discontinued not nystatin. You should be able to get hold of that because I have been.

i agree, it’s terrible there isn’t more they can do. We are back at Drs again next week for another check in

This issue has been going on for over a year - we couldn't get the right treatment in early 2024 for DD2. If you do manage to get the nystatin, the best technique to apply is to put the amount in a small clean pot or cup, dip your finger in and rub your finger all round babies mouth. If you use the dropper / syringe thing with the bottle, it doesnt get right into the sides of mouth and back of tongue. Make sure your nipples are being treated at the same time so when you go back to bf, you don't pass it back between you. We needed 3 courses to sort it in the end.

So I actually used the gel (can’t remember the age but probably a bit older than yours). I was told by GP if you use very sparingly, there isn’t a risk of choking. You just squeeze a tiny bit on your finger and rub around the mouth very very thinly. Has your GP suggested this?

how are you sterilising bottles? I was also told that steam isn’t really enough as fungal stuff can really hang around. I was told to use Milton steriliser. It actually kills the fungus and says this on the packet. I would recommend new teats, then sterilise them and the bottles using Milton.

In doing both of these, it cleared up. Good luck

Buy plain glycerine in the pharmacy. After each feed, dip a soother in the glycerine and give to baby. It will clean any milk residue off her tongue, leaving nothing for the thrush to live on.

I am on long term treatment for invasive Candida and both Nystatin and Daktarin (the gel others are referring to) have now been discontinued- Nystatin is a temporary thing until June apparently. You may be able to get left over stock of it in some pharmacies - I get 8 bottles of it a month on repeat prescription and I can’t get enough of it anywhere so I am having to take Fluconazole orally but that comes with a lot of side effects (I was on 50mg Fluconazole for months and months at one point).

Your best bet is to ring round all your local and not so local pharmacies and see if any have any nystatin left in stock. I ended up paying £25 for a bottle from chemist4u - I normally don’t pay for it on prescription as I have a medical exemption but I’m desperate …!

Are you sure that you have it the right way round? Have you checked with several pharmacies? My ds2 was prescribed nystatin a couple of weeks ago and it was no problem getting it. The gel is the one that is out of stock everywhere, I was told this by 2 GPs and a pharmacist.

Nope there’s now a manufacturing issue with nystatin now too. So no Daktarin and no nystatin. You may have been able to get old stock but there’s no new stock coming in.

There is a Nystatin shortage and a complete stop in manufacturing. Daktarin has been discontinued. They are hoping to produce more Nystatin in June. It’s extremely frustrating. I’m under two fungal specialists and it’s a real issue.

Apologies cross posted.

Oh, poor baby! I'm sorry to hear the treatment hasn't been working. We had been told by a few pharmacists that Nystatin was "manufacturer out of stock", but luckily we did manage to find a bottle after contacting 50+ pharmacies!! Hope your baby is better soon!

I was advised to dab some clorhexidine mouthwash or apply some using cotton buds, stings at first but it worked.

Ah sorry just saw a newborn not toddler, maybe not then

I have been in a similar situation. My 6week old baby had oral thrush and got presided nystatin as Dr said the gel (which is more effective is out of stock) it hadn’t gone after a weeks treatment so went back and got prescribed 2 more weeks worth and I was pulling my hair out trying to get 1 bottle let alone 2! Managed to get one and ordered another online as a couple of online pharmacies still have some (I used The independent pharmacy online). However, the thrush was still very much there and not budging so researched some home remedies and were on day 4 of bicarbonate of soda and cool boiled water and it’s pretty much gone 🙌🏻 I do it x4 a day, generally after feeds before a nap so it’s in as long as possible and use a cotton bud and swab all around the mouth and tongue (repeated 6 times). Baby tolerates it really well and doesn’t mind. Going to continue for a couple of days now it’s clear to prevent it coming back. Still using the cream to treat myself to prevent us passing it to and from eachother too.
Hope this helps 💙

I've seen quite a lot of posts saying about how Nystatin isn't really effective :( its cleared up a little in our LO but not yet completely gone - the bicarb soda sounds like its worked wonders for you though, we will look into that if it doesn't clear up! Thank you🩷

I use a ratio of 1/2 tsp to 60mls of cool boiled water.
❤️

Just to put an update on here for how we got on.
I have had a second swab from the doctors come back as negative for oral thrush..! I have seen a breast feeding consultant and they and the Dr both now think it never was oral thrush and I was misdiagnosed.
it is just milk tongue, but it stays on my babies tongue longer than average because of the way she feeds and also a mixture of dead skin cells from the nipples (TMI) and the milk sticking to it.
I have since used boiled cooled water and cotton bud to wipe away and it is slowly disappearing.
i am so annoyed we spent so long on different medications and countless trips to doctors and pharmacy for a misdiagnosis.
I would urge anyone going through similar to get swabs done as soon as you can

Oh my god, that is terrible!! I read somewhere that oral thrush is over-diagnosed, how frustrating! Glad to hear it's clearing away for your baby now though.

Lucy Webber Feeding Support has a good factsheet about the difference between milk tongue and oral thrush. I follow her on insta but she probably has a website page as well i guess? She's an IBCLC / ex midwife.

I will take a look, thank you!