What to do about mastitis?

[chocolate26]

I'm pretty sure I have mastitis in one breast. It is very sore, hard and red. I have pumped 8oz and placed warm flannels on it to try and help, I have also had a warm bath. It is feeling less painful now after all this but the redness is still there. Does it need antibiotics? Or can I try and treat it at home? If it does need antibiotics can it wait until tomorrow or do I need to be seen out of hours today?
Thanks :)

I’d advise to go to DR tomorrow if no better. I got it about 5 times and needed anti biotics to get better! You can massage it And I used an electric toothbrush to do this sometimes!

Feed as much as you can - it doesn’t always need antibiotics - I managed to do lots of massage and feeding to reduce the blockage before it became infected.

I had mastitis —far too— many times-you need antibiotics sooner rather than later. I ended up in all sorts of trouble with migraine headache/agony in that breast so that I couldn’t massage it and feeding also exquisitely painful. By my third pregnancy, it was such a guarantee I would get it, that my GP gave me a prescription for emergency use when she saw me at my check up post birth-sure as hell needed them within a month!

My advice is to get antibiotics ASAP. I left it too late and had an awful breast abscess. I also took the advice of MN and one out of hours GP and continued to (extremely painfully) feed through it and it didn’t help me at all. It then returned with an awful vengeance and the community midwife said it was the worst case of mastitis she’d seen in 10 years - please ring the docs or out of hours. I continued to feed from one boob and feeding fine ever since.

In light of the comments above, I would stick with my advice only for a maximum of 24 hours - which is how long it took for me to feel completely normal with the ‘massage and feed through it’ approach. Don’t leave it longer than that.