Breastfeeding and breast clinic referral

[Em199222]

I am currently bf my baby girl who will be 1 later this month and just been referred to the breast clinic on the 2 week cancer pathway.
in the last 6 months I have had 7 bouts of mastitis in the same spot, each have cleared without antibiotics and some good self care at home. I went to the gp a couple of weeks ago about it and they gave me antibiotics to try incase there was a lingering infection that just wasn’t cleaning but I still have a mild deep pain in the area and as it has not resolved they have referred me on.
For background I am an experienced breatdeeding mum (fed my sons for around 5 years total) and have had a mixture of thrush, blocked ducts, mild and severe mastitis in the past. I’m also a midwife so have a good knowledge base of all things breastfeeding!
I guess I’m just wanting to hear other experiences of visiting the breast clinic from mums who were feeding or had similar troubles!
Google has terrified me and my gp understandably had to be honest about their concerns that there could be a non lactational cause.

Could it be positioning? If the mastitis is in same spot each time, that would indicate it's the same ducts blocking each time... could be as simple as LO teething etc affecting positioning, or ill fitting bra etc (sorry I hope that doesn't come across as rude)

Wishing you all the best, it's good they're checking you out so swiftly, at least it'll put your mind at rest!

Thanks for replying!

I don’t think it’s positioning as I’ve changed everything I can think of with no real chance in the reoccurrences. I now sleep on my husbands side of the bed incase I was favouring that side while feeding at night, changed bras, switched up positions and even gave up my baby carrier because the strap fell along where I’ve been sore but with no success!
The reason I put off going to the gp was to try each of things I could think of in the hopes I’d figured out the culprit.

Im glad to be getting checked out and rule out anything worrying but the mind doesn’t half wander to the worst case while you’re waiting!

I had a friend who had a similar story and it was something related to a deep cyst which wasn’t properly clearing despite antibiotics. She had it surgically excised and it took a while to heal but she kept on feeding

This sounds familiar - I had a lot of problems feeding my 5th child. Constant clogged duct, always on the same side. Lots of antibiotics, and this kept leading to my child getting thrush. It was a nightmare.

I tried everything - soaked it in warm water , and salty water and rubbed the top. Tried feeding a lot on that side. The last resort was using a needle and popping the bleb. Not the best, but worked (up to a point, eventually the bleb healed inside so I couldn’t pop it again). A few times it unclogged when I stopped wearing a bra, and fed most of the night on that side (making sure she was latched on correctly), also trying different feeding positions on the same side.

Thinking about it, I was treated years ago for a cyst under my breast (within the path of the clogged duct), and this might have been the reason why it kept struggling.

After 1 year and two months I had the biggest infection, and I put off the antibiotics until I gave up breastfeeding because of all the thrush. By then I was crying with the pain, and was very happy when it all cleared up. I would have fed longer if it wasn’t so painful.

Good luck op, hope it clears up.

I’ve not had experience of going to the Breast Clinic whilst feeding. Just wanted to ask if TT has been completely ruled out by a TT Practitioner? For je that’s what caused the recurrent mastitis

I had a breast abscess and had to attend the breast clinic. It was a relief for me as the consultant was the only Dr I'd seen who understood what was wrong and how to treat it. Could it be something like a cyst or abscess? Abscess in my experience is incredibly painful though so perhaps not that.

Had exactly this, developed a pain and lump in breast whilst feeding.
Referred by GP to breast clinic, had a scan which confirmed a lump, had a biopsy which came back negative.
(Which led to cottage cheese coming out of my breast whilst healing from the biopsy hole).
All
good, was just attributed to changes in breast tissue due to pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Due to healing from biopsy have always had a little lump
remaining which when I had my routine mammogram in early 50s had a recall for further investigation which was due to scar tissue.

I was petrified at the time of the initial referral but in hindsight relieved to be put on the pathway to ensure nothing more serious was happening.

Good luck with your referral.
.