Have you cleared your mastitis without antibiotics? What worked?

[Doughnut100]

I have bad mastitis in both breasts I had a fever but it has come down. My breasts are both red in 1 or 2 places.

My daughter is healthy we went to the midwife today. Gaining weight well, drinking well, plenty of wet and dirty nappies.

My GP prescribed antibiotics and said it's fine to try for a couple of days to clear it naturally before I start them.

I am massaging my breasts while she feeds and in the shower, combing my breasts, trying different feeding positions, eating raw garlic, using cabbage leaves.

I went through a LOT of trouble to push my beautiful daughter through my birth canal so I'd really rather not kill off all her good bacteria when she is 10 days old. She would get the antibiotics in my milk. Apparently early antibiotic use is linked to health problems in later life.

Please don't jump on me, I am not and would never endanger my daughter's health. But I can put up with a bit more pain on her behalf so I'd like to try.

Is there anyone out there who has successfully cleared their mastitis without the antibiotics? What worked for you?

Loads of hot showers and hand expressing as much milk as possible, even though it was painful. Once out of the shower, I would have my baby breastfeed immediately, as long as they would allow. Then back in the shower. It's rubbish and I'm so sorry you're dealing with this, but it does pass.

@Aquamarine1029 thank you so much I will try that in the daytime tomorrow

Hot compresses as well as the hot showers and using the hand pump to express. And massaging.

Just be careful. My fever went down and then shot back up and ended up in hospital with sepsis. Scary stuff. Up to you but I would just take the antibiotics.

I didn't know about the antibiotics but I had them and didn't take them with DD. It cleared up. Hot baths and BFing her in them (her on my chest out of the hot water). No idea if it would have cleared up anyway but certainly it helped me.

No, I always took the antibiotics I felt so poorly. I definitely didn't want sepsis. Still breastfeeding fine, me and toddler healthy, gut bacteria seems to be working well. I liked to buy the replacement probiotic/micro biome courses, I have no idea if they work.

I would start the antibiotics immediately.

I had mastitis in both breasts (all over both breasts, a scary amount of blockages) my temp went down, then it shot back up with severe flu symptoms, and I developed sepsis. It took me several days to clear the blockages, by which time my supply had dwindled, baby couldn’t get enough milk and was also hospitalised as dropped from 7lb (above birth weight) to 5lb 12 in just 6 days. I persevered with breastfeeding for a good while longer to try and get my supply back, but eventually ended fully formula as my MH couldn’t take it. Started at 14 days post.

Don’t underestimate mastitis - keep doing what you’re doing to move the blockages, and take the antibiotics.

I'm sorry, Mastitis is the WORST! When I had it with my first the doc refused antibiotics and said that they were fairly pointless as you just need to work really hard at getting out the blockages. I wept as hoped antibiotics could be a quick fix. Tones of pumping, feeding, hot flannels, hand expressing in a hot bath etc is the best way. This worked when I had my second too, very painful to clear but once it's done the fever and illness feeling goes away fast, just a bit bruised from all of the massaging etc. good luck

I rented (well still do) a hospital grade pump and pumped my breasts empty every 1-2 hours till the mastitis cleared. That did mean that dd was exclusively bottle fed my milk for a couple of days.

Mastitis is awful, I hope you get well soon.

I've had mastitis a couple of times and managed to avoid antibiotics. I fed as often as my baby would take and then in between massaged under a hot shower, or expressed using an electric pump. I also used hot compresses while feeding or expressing. You have to be a bit mindful as obviously it's supply and demand so expressing too much can increase your supply and cause problems again, but if there is a blockage you need to get it out. The first time, I had clumps of stringy thick semi solid milk come out eventually. Pretty painful but I felt so much better afterwards.

It's important though to get it sorted as quickly as you can. My SIL ended up with complications due to undiagnosed and therefore untreated mastitis. It nearly ended her breastfeeding journey. So by all means try to sort it yourself, but don't martyr yourself - you need to be well for your baby and if that means antibiotics it's not the end of the world

Good luck x

Thanks all so much. I'm taking all opinions very seriously. One boob is better and the other still red but not as much. Temperature gone. The thing that felt best so far was combing my breasts in a hot shower before a feed.

sunflower lecithin capsules worked well for me for blocked ducts and avoid mastitis

I found the best thing was to wrap a hot wheatbag around my boob and hand express. I also asked DP to hand express because he could apply more pressure.
In all honesty though, I’ve never felt as unwell as I did with mastitis and I really needed the antibiotics!! Please please consider taking them and taking care of yourself.

I agree that you need to be really vigilant with mastitis - my friend ended up with a breast abscess caused by mastitis.

@Doughnut100 I had blocked ducts, not sure if I ever got to the mastisis stage. It was painful though and went on for days. What helped me is much of what the previous posters have already said
(1) is the NHS massage method which is like making two horizontal lines in opposite directions.
(2) Finding the blockage and massaging that out
(3) doing 1 and 2 in a hot hot shower. At some point, (1) causes milk to start coming out by the bucketloads.

It is still sore after. I had this 2 maybe 3 times and above helped. Oh, and then I started noticing when it was starting again and doing (1) as almost a preventative measure.

All the best