Pain breastfeeding after 11 months

[Putthekettleon2021]

DD is 10 months old and has been EBF. For the last few days feeding has been really painful on both sides, I'm persevering but the pain is toe curling. Has anyone experienced this, have not really had any problems with breastfeeding before. There is next to no breastfeeding support in my area at present, so not really sure who to approach.

TIA

Could be mastitis which usually presents as redness (often as stripes / veins) and is an infection in the ducts. Easily solved with antibiotics. Do you feel a blockage anywhere?

Or it could be thrush. This is more unusual and you'd often notice that your baby's tongue would also be infected showing as white curd on the tongue (hard to describe - google). I found thrush to be tow curling as you describe. It's hard to get rid of but push for fluconazole from the GP. Larger loading dose and then a short course.

In terms of what to do you could ring LLL or better yet go to your GP.

@headintheproverbial Thank you! I don't feel any blockages. I'll check dd's tongue. I'll follow up with the GP, thank you.

Some handy resources:

www.nationalbreastfeedinghelpline.org.uk/

Free helpline
Open 9.30am - 9.30pm every single day.

La leche league
www.laleche.org.uk/telephone-helpline/

You can look for a local contact or call helpline
Also open all year round and until 11pm.

I had pain just after feeding from about 9 to 13 months when she fully weaned. It definitely wasn't mastitis with me, I think DD changed her latch, but worth ruling it out anyway.

I found that having a heated oat pad to hold on the breast afterwards helped, as well as lanolin.

Have to say though, if I'd had pain like it at the beginning, she would have been formula fed, it was sheer determination to get me through to the year and then wind it right down because I'd come so far!

Good luck sorting it OP, it's horrible to deal with.

Sound like thrush.

I've checked dd's tongue this morning there are no changes. No changes with my boob aside from the pain. I've booked a telephone consultation with the nurse, so I'll go from there. I'm wondering if it may be to do with latch or teething. It's similar to the pain I had a few days into breastfeeding, but it seemed to resolve itself quickly. Fingers crossed I get some answers today.

Thank you all.